From bug-octave-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Fri Mar 26 12:43:09 1999
Subject: memory leaking in octave 2.1.7/2.1.13
From: "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
To: ajc at inescn dot pt
cc: bug-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 12:42:51 -0600 (CST)

On 26-Mar-1999, Artur Jorge Azevedo Carvalho <ajc at inescn dot pt> wrote:

|  1 - Memory allocated  by script files isn't deallocated by octave ,
| when
|  the script execution ends, only when we do a clear <function name>, is 
|  then deallocated. This memory is only allocated the first time the 
|  function is called, the second time the same function is called new 
|  memory is allocated but when it returns to the command prompt this new 
|  memory is released, except for the memory allocated the first time the 
|  function was called.

Sorry, I don't follow this statement.

| in the following examples each array allocated consumes aproximatly 8Mb
| 
| Bug 1:
| at line prompt: # octave 			- 3400Kb
| at octave prompt:
| 
| function y=t(a);a(1,1)=0;y=a;end		- 3476Kb
| a=rand(1000);					- 11336Kb
| t(a);						- 19172Kb
| clear a;					- 11336Kb
| clear t;					- 3404Kb

I also don't understand why this small change in memory use is a leak,
or due to calling the function.  There are lots of other things going
on that could cause a small growth in the memory use.  For example,
the commands you type are being stored in the history list.

To demonstrate that there is a leak, can you please give me a sequence
of commands like

  while (1)
    commands that cause Octave to grow without bound ...
  endwhile

that will allow me to reproduce the problem?

Thanks,

jwe