Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!convex!news
From: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: script gobbles up memory
Message-ID: <1991Mar01.023843.1282@convex.com>
Date: 1 Mar 91 02:38:43 GMT
References: <291@carssdf.UUCP>
Sender: news@convex.com (news access account)
Reply-To: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Organization: CONVEX Software Development, Richardson, TX
Lines: 31
Nntp-Posting-Host: pixel.convex.com

From the keyboard of usenet@carssdf.UUCP (John Watson):
:Most of my scripts look something like this:
:
:while (<>) { chop; @F=split(/_/);
:    .... some code for each line ....
:}
:
:This gobbles up memory.  If I add a "reset 'F';" line in the loop, it is
:fine.  Should I need to do this?  If necessary, why wouldn't a line of
:"undef @F;" work? (it doesn't).

Yes, undef should work fine.  What patchlevel of perl are you at and on
what hardware/software platform?  Actually, you shouldn't even need that,
since each successive assignment to @F should in theory free of the memory
associated with the previous values.

A couple of miscellaneous asides...  Don't you mean:

    @F = split(' ');

(Unless you really have underbars as field separators.)

Also, you say that most of your scripts to the split().  They'll run
a little faster if you only split when you need to.

--tom
--
"UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because
 that would also stop you from doing clever things." -- Doug Gwyn

 Tom Christiansen                tchrist@convex.com      convex!tchrist