what about System.gc

dominix has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi fellowmonks, I've recently discovered the System.gc in a script, and it was the first time I saw this function. So I imediately typed a

perldoc -f System.gc
No documentation for perl function `System.gc' found

perl -c  -e 'System.gc;'
-e syntax OK
[download]

I'm curious about that, can someone explain what this does ? where it come from ? it look like a call to Garbage collector, but how do I use it ?
Thanks

--
dominix

Comment on what about System.gc Download Code

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Re: what about System.gc by Corion (Patriarch) on Jun 28, 2005 at 09:26 UTC
You're likely looking at a script not written in or for Perl. If you use warnings, Perl will tell you what it sees instead: `perl -we "System.gc" Useless use of a constant in void context at -e line 1.` [download] What Perl sees here is the concatenation of two bareword strings: `perl -we "print System.gc" Unquoted string "gc" may clash with future reserved word at -e line 1. Systemgc` [download] Perl has no garbage collector, as it uses reference counting only.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: what about System.gc by kaif (Friar) on Jun 28, 2005 at 12:28 UTC
Indeeed, the code is likely Java.	[reply]
Re^2: what about System.gc by dominix (Deacon) on Jun 28, 2005 at 09:32 UTC
lol, thanks Corion. I learn about perl everyday and so I was too curious what this was about, to think it was not Perl. :) thanks for the quick response. -- dominix	[reply]