Best way to deallocate an array of array in javascript

Question

What is the best way to deallocate an array of array in javascript to make sure no memory leaks will happen?

var foo = new Array();
foo[0] = new Array();
foo[0][0] = 'bar0';
foo[0][1] = 'bar1';
foo[1] = new Array();
...

1. delete(foo)?
2. iterate through foo, delete(foo[index]) and delete(foo)?
3. 1 and 2 give me the same result?
4. none?

Answer 1

foo = null;

should be enough for the garbage collector to get rid of the array, including all its child arrays (assuming nothing else has a reference to them). Note that it will only get rid of it when it wants to, not immediately, so don't be surprised if the browser's memory consumption doesn't drop straight away: that isn't a leak.

It potentially gets more complicated if any of those array elements contain references to DOM nodes.

Answer 2

you can't delete variable, set it null foo = null;

.. or use a namespace object

var namespace = {};
namespace.foo = [];
delete namespace.foo;