[webkit-dev] Calling gc::collect() before the program exits

[Maciej Stachowiak]

On Jul 27, 2009, at 12:06 PM, Zoltan Herczeg wrote:

> Hi,
>
> by default, gc::collect() is triggered by a timer at regular  
> intervals. In
> QtLauncher, gc::collect() is not called in any other way, so the  
> remaining
> JS objects cause memory leaks when QtLauncher exits. Although this
> approach may not be considered a bug, since the program soon quits, I
> would be curious what other ports do before they return to the OS?  
> This
> question is more important, if we want to use WebKit as a library:  
> in this
> case the closing of the last WebKit frame may not necessary means  
> the end
> of the current program.

Heap::collect() is called:

- By JavaScriptCore internal to GC allocation after some number of  
allocations (which varies with the side of the heap).
- By WebCore on a one-shot zero-delay timer after after a frame is  
navigated (clearing the global object) or after an item expires from  
the back/forward cache
- In debug builds by WebKit (at least the mac version) immediately  
when a WebView is closed during the app termination process.

Thus, after the last frame is closed there will be a garbage  
collection unless the process exits before the timer has a chance to  
run, and on Mac debug builds we make an extra effort to clean up for  
the benefit of leak checking. (On release builds, we want to enable  
the app to exit as fast as possible so we avoid all cleanup except for  
flushing pending writes to disk.)

It's possible for GC to fail to completely clean up, because it is  
partially conservative. The zero-delay timer is there to reduce the  
risk of false stack references.

Regards,
Maciej