Re: git-svnimport failed and now git-repack hates me

[merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz)]

>>>>> "Eric" == Eric Wong <normalperson@yhbt.net> writes:

Eric> Part of it is Perl, which (as far as I know) never frees allocated
Eric> memory back to the OS (although Perl can reuse the allocated memory for
Eric> other things).

It does on Linux, of all things.  That's because Linux has a smarter
malloc/free that uses mmap(2) for the large chunks.  On Linux, Perl memory
size can apparently grow and shrink nicely.  The "old school" advice about
Perl comes from sbrk(2)-driven malloc/free.

Try:

        $x[1e6] = "0";
        sleep 10; # do a ps here
        @x = ();
        sleep 30; # do a ps here

and watch the process on Linux.  If I'm right, this should show a large
process,  then a smaller one.

If you're getting a growing process though, you probably have a circular data
reference.  Maybe you have a tree with backpointers, and those backpointers
should have been weakened?

-- 
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<merlyn@stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
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