I'm having an unfortunate DSFML issue, where failing to free objects like Images or Sprites causes exceptions to eventually be thrown. Calling the built-in member dispose() causes access violations, so I assume it's not for programmer use.

However, I need the resources to be freed more quickly than the GC is apparently doing (I assume the Images and Sprites are eventually cleaned up), so is there a way to invoke a GC cleanup in some way?

Sean Eskapp:

> so is there a way to invoke a GC cleanup in some way?

http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/core_memory.html#minimize

Bye,
bearophile

On Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:58:13 -0500, bearophile <bearophileHUGS@lycos.com> wrote:

> Sean Eskapp:
>
>> so is there a way to invoke a GC cleanup in some way?
>
> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/core_memory.html#minimize

This attempts to minimize memory, it does not run a collection cycle (I don't think anyways).  To invoke the GC collector, use:

http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/core_memory.html#collect

-Steve

> However, I need the resources to be freed more quickly than the GC is
> apparently doing

You could use scoped instances if you need to clean them up soon after creation.

== Quote from Trass3r (un@known.com)'s article
> > However, I need the resources to be freed more quickly than the GC is apparently doing
> You could use scoped instances if you need to clean them up soon after creation.

To my knowledge, these are being removed from the language, and so, could only be used in the short-term.

== Quote from Steven Schveighoffer (schveiguy@yahoo.com)'s article
> On Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:58:13 -0500, bearophile <bearophileHUGS@lycos.com> wrote:
> > Sean Eskapp:
> >
> >> so is there a way to invoke a GC cleanup in some way?
> >
> > http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/core_memory.html#minimize
> This attempts to minimize memory, it does not run a collection cycle (I don't think anyways).  To invoke the GC collector, use: http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/core_memory.html#collect -Steve

Works great, thanks!

On Wednesday 09 February 2011 17:52:47 Sean Eskapp wrote:
> == Quote from Trass3r (un@known.com)'s article
> 
> > > However, I need the resources to be freed more quickly than the GC is apparently doing
> > 
> > You could use scoped instances if you need to clean them up soon after creation.
> 
> To my knowledge, these are being removed from the language, and so, could only be used in the short-term.

Yes. They're inherently unsafe because of the risk of escaped references. std.typecons.scoped is intended as an alternative however, if you really want it. Personally, I'd generally advise against it unless profiling shows that you need it.

- Jonathan M Davis

On 02/09/2011 10:15 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:58:13 -0500, bearophile <bearophileHUGS@lycos.com> wrote:
>
>> Sean Eskapp:
>>
>>> so is there a way to invoke a GC cleanup in some way?
>>
>> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/core_memory.html#minimize
>
> This attempts to minimize memory, it does not run a collection cycle (I don't
> think anyways). To invoke the GC collector, use:
>
> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/core_memory.html#collect
>
> -Steve

But won't this blindly run a GC cycle? What if all I want is a given thingy's mem to be released, isn't it overkill to call GC.collect?

Denis
-- 
_________________
vita es estrany
spir.wikidot.com

On Thu, 10 Feb 2011 07:34:53 -0500, spir <denis.spir@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 02/09/2011 10:15 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> On Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:58:13 -0500, bearophile <bearophileHUGS@lycos.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Sean Eskapp:
>>>
>>>> so is there a way to invoke a GC cleanup in some way?
>>>
>>> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/core_memory.html#minimize
>>
>> This attempts to minimize memory, it does not run a collection cycle (I don't
>> think anyways). To invoke the GC collector, use:
>>
>> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/core_memory.html#collect
>>
>> -Steve
>
> But won't this blindly run a GC cycle? What if all I want is a given thingy's mem to be released, isn't it overkill to call GC.collect?

Then you can free it via: http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/core_memory.html#free

The OP's question was "how do I run the garbage collector".

-Steve

Sean Eskapp wrote:
>I'm having an unfortunate DSFML issue, where failing to free objects like Images or Sprites causes exceptions to eventually be thrown. Calling the built-in member dispose() causes access violations, so I assume it's not for programmer use.
>
>However, I need the resources to be freed more quickly than the GC is apparently doing (I assume the Images and Sprites are eventually cleaned up), so is there a way to invoke a GC cleanup in some way?

I don't think that invoking the garbage collector is a good solution in
this case. "dispose" is indeed defined as "protected", so you probably
should not call it manually, but then there really should be a public
dispose like function. The reason for the crashes when calling
dispose manually is simple: dispose calls a c sfml function to release c
resources. The destructor calls dispose again, dispose tries to free an
invalid pointer -> crash. So what should probably be done is to define a
private m_disposed member and only call dispose if it hasn't been called
before. Try to add this code to the DSFMLObject class in
dsfml/system/common.d:

-------------------------------------
private:
    bool m_disposed = false;

public:
    final void releaseRessources() //Needs a better name, though
    {
        if(m_disposed)
            return;
        dispose();
        m_disposed = true;
    }
-------------------------------------

And change dispose() in the DSFmLObject ~this() to releaseRessources();

(Crashes might still occur if dispose is called directly. In the end,
this might need a little more thinking, but that's up to the DSFML
authors ;-))
-- 
Johannes Pfau