Re^2: Hashing Memory Usage

[awkmonk]

Ah a red herring - it's not hashes at all! I'm changing values in a large hash as I loop through files. The problem occurs when I come to create the key for the hash. The following code works properly on 5.6 but grows on 5.8. Delete the substitution line, and hey presto, no more leak.

use strict;

my $ret = `ps v $$`;
print "$ret\n";

for ( 1 .. 1000 ){
  my $key = ':PERSON-NUM(1:*):NI-NUM(1:*):';
  for my $bb ( "PERSON-NUM", "NI-NUM" ){
     if ( $key =~ /:$bb *\( *([0-9]+) *: *([0-9\*]+) *\) *:/ ){
        $key =~ s/:$bb *\( *[0-9]+ *: *[0-9\*]+ *\) *:/:$bb=1:/;
       }
    }
 }


$ret = `ps v $$`;
print "$ret\n";

Now I'm confused!

[BrowserUk]

I ran your code with the loop iterator set 1e6, and see no memory growth under either 5.8.6 or 5.8.8.

I seem to recall that 5.8.2 (the version shown in your OP), was a particularly buggy, short-lived release. I strongly suggest you try upgrading to something newer. My memory tells me that 5.8.3 was a pretty good build as is 5.8.6 which I still use as my default install. I encountered a few problems with 5.8.8 but I think they may have been limited to the AS-Win distribution I use.