A perl program can use more memory after running a while even if nothing is wrong. For example, if you load a 10MB file into a scalar, that scalar will hang onto that memory, even if it goes out of scope.

Shouldn't these situations be handled by garbage collection.

Maybe, but mostly they aren't, for performance reasons:

sub bla {
  my $arg = shift;
  my $big_string = $arg x 1000;
}
[download]

Perl will in general keep the memory for $big_string allocated and reserved, because then it doesn't need to allocate the memory again next time the sub is called.

Explicitly undef()ing or resizing variables before they go out of scope sometimes helps, though - on some systems, it might even free the memory back to the system.

Usually, you don't need to do this, exactly because the memory gets reused anyway. If your program grows a lot, it's more likely you're using an inefficient algorithm, or you're creating circular references somewhere.

"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

So basicly if one has a large variable, which should be removed by scoping (not counting the speed usage but memory in should word), one should do manually. But if the large variable is within sub and that sub is used again (eg from a loop structure), then all the variables within it is automatically reused.

Note that in your example, Perl will keep the memory for $big_string twice:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Readonly;

Readonly my $size => 10 * 1024 ** 2; # 10 Mb.

sub show_mem {
    system "grep ^VmSize /proc/$$/status";
}

sub gimme_big {
    my $size = shift;
    my $var  = 'x' x $size;
}

show_mem;
gimme_big $size;
show_mem;

__END__
VmSize:     3464 kB
VmSize:    23952 kB
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For a 10Mb string, Perl allocates about 20Mb memory.

undefing the variable makes Perl allocate about 10Mb less:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Readonly;

Readonly my $size => 10 * 1024 ** 2; # 10 Mb.

sub show_mem {
    system "grep ^VmSize /proc/$$/status";
}

sub gimme_big {
    my $size = shift;
    my $var  = 'x' x $size;
    undef $var;
}

show_mem;
gimme_big $size;
show_mem;

__END__
VmSize:     3472 kB
VmSize:    13716 kB
[download]

So, how do we get rid of the extra 10Mb? By a careful use of string eval:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Readonly;

Readonly my $size => 10 * 1024 ** 2; # 10 Mb.

sub show_mem {
    system "grep ^VmSize /proc/$$/status";
}

sub gimme_big {
    my $size = shift;
    my $var  = eval "'x' x $size";
    undef $var;
}

show_mem;
gimme_big $size;
show_mem;

__END__
VmSize:     3468 kB
VmSize:     3468 kB
[download]

That's what I was thinking too. The fact that memory usage slowly grows until the OS kills it is not good. The files I am processing have fairly short lines and it processes the files line by line in a loop. All of the variables inside that loop should be "reusing" the same space, right? Otherwise, what is the point of scoping at all.

Scott
Project coordinator of the Generic Model Organism Database Project

All of the variables in that loop will retain their memory between calls and reuse it. However, if you leave that loop, they will still retain that memory. Also, if you load one of them once with 10MB of data, it will stay at that size until perl exits unless you explicitly undef it when you're done with it.

I would probably help if you could show some code.
"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

No, the memory is not freed. Perl keeps it as an optimization since you would need to allocate it again the next time this chunk of code runs. Of course that doesn't help you any if that code doesn't run again in your program... We have discussed this at length on the mod_perl list and it is covered in the mod_perl docs.