In Perl, how can I release memory to the operating system?

Question

I am having some problems with memory in Perl. When I fill up a big hash, I can not get the memory to be released back to the OS. When I do the same with a scalar and use undef, it will give the memory back to the OS.

Here is a test program I wrote.

#!/usr/bin/perl
###### Memory test
######

## Use Commands
use Number::Bytes::Human qw(format_bytes);
use Data::Dumper;
use Devel::Size qw(size total_size);

## Create Varable
my $share_var;
my %share_hash;
my $type_hash = 1;
my $type_scalar = 1;

## Start Main Loop
while (true) {
    &Memory_Check();
    print "Hit Enter (add to memory): "; <>;
    &Up_Mem(100_000);
    &Memory_Check();

    print "Hit Enter (Set Varable to nothing): "; <>;
    $share_var = "";
    $share_hash = ();
    &Memory_Check();

    print "Hit Enter (clean data): "; <>;
    &Clean_Data();
    &Memory_Check();

    print "Hit Enter (start over): "; <>;
}

exit;


#### Up Memory
sub Up_Mem {
    my $total_loops = shift;
    my $n = 1;
    print "Adding data to shared varable $total_loops times\n";

    until ($n > $total_loops) {
        if ($type_hash) {
            $share_hash{$n} = 'X' x 1111;
        }
        if ($type_scalar) {
            $share_var .= 'X' x 1111;
        }
        $n += 1;
    }
    print "Done Adding Data\n";
}

#### Clean up Data
sub Clean_Data {
    print "Clean Up Data\n";

    if ($type_hash) {
        ## Method to fix hash (Trying Everything i can think of!
        my $n = 1;
        my $total_loops = 100_000;
        until ($n > $total_loops) {
            undef $share_hash{$n};
            $n += 1;
        }

        %share_hash = ();
        $share_hash = ();
        undef $share_hash;
        undef %share_hash;
    }
    if ($type_scalar) {
        undef $share_var;
    }
}

#### Check Memory Usage
sub Memory_Check {
    ## Get current memory from shell
    my @mem = `ps aux | grep \"$$\"`;
    my($results) = grep !/grep/, @mem;

    ## Parse Data from Shell
    chomp $results;
    $results =~ s/^\w*\s*\d*\s*\d*\.\d*\s*\d*\.\d*\s*//g; $results =~ s/pts.*//g;
    my ($vsz,$rss) = split(/\s+/,$results);

    ## Format Numbers to Human Readable
    my $h = Number::Bytes::Human->new();
    my $virt = $h->format($vsz);
    my $h = Number::Bytes::Human->new();
    my $res = $h->format($rss);

    print "Current Memory Usage: Virt: $virt  RES: $res\n";

    if ($type_hash) {
        my $total_size = total_size(\%share_hash);
        my @arr_c = keys %share_hash;
        print "Length of Hash: " . ($#arr_c + 1) . "  Hash Mem Total Size: $total_size\n";
    }
    if ($type_scalar) {
        my $total_size = total_size($share_var);
        print "Length of Scalar: " . length($share_var) . "  Scalar Mem Total Size: $total_size\n";
    }

}

OUTPUT:

./Memory_Undef_Simple.cgi 
Current Memory Usage: Virt: 6.9K  RES: 2.7K
Length of Hash: 0  Hash Mem Total Size: 92
Length of Scalar: 0  Scalar Mem Total Size: 12
Hit Enter (add to memory): 
Adding data to shared varable 100000 times
Done Adding Data
Current Memory Usage: Virt: 228K  RES: 224K
Length of Hash: 100000  Hash Mem Total Size: 116813243
Length of Scalar: 111100000  Scalar Mem Total Size: 111100028
Hit Enter (Set Varable to nothing): 
Current Memory Usage: Virt: 228K  RES: 224K
Length of Hash: 100000  Hash Mem Total Size: 116813243
Length of Scalar: 0  Scalar Mem Total Size: 111100028
Hit Enter (clean data): 
Clean Up Data
Current Memory Usage: Virt: 139K  RES: 135K
Length of Hash: 0  Hash Mem Total Size: 92
Length of Scalar: 0  Scalar Mem Total Size: 24
Hit Enter (start over): 

So as you can see the memory goes down, but it only goes down the size of the scalar. Any ideas how to free the memory of the hash?

Also Devel::Size shows the hash is only taking up 92 bytes even though the program still is using 139K.

Answer 1

Generally, yeah, that's how memory management on UNIX works. If you are using Linux with a recent glibc, and are using that malloc, you can return free'd memory to the OS. I am not sure Perl does this, though.

If you want to work with large datasets, don't load the whole thing into memory, use something like BerkeleyDB:

https://metacpan.org/pod/BerkeleyDB

Example code, stolen verbatim:

  use strict ;
  use BerkeleyDB ;

  my $filename = "fruit" ;
  unlink $filename ;
  tie my %h, "BerkeleyDB::Hash",
              -Filename => $filename,
              -Flags    => DB_CREATE
      or die "Cannot open file $filename: $! $BerkeleyDB::Error\n" ;

  # Add a few key/value pairs to the file
  $h{apple}  = "red" ;
  $h{orange} = "orange" ;
  $h{banana} = "yellow" ;
  $h{tomato} = "red" ;

  # Check for existence of a key
  print "Banana Exists\n\n" if $h{banana} ;

  # Delete a key/value pair.
  delete $h{apple} ;

  # print the contents of the file
  while (my ($k, $v) = each %h)
    { print "$k -> $v\n" }

  untie %h ;

(OK, not verbatim. Their use of use vars is ... legacy ...)

You can store gigabytes of data in a hash this way, and you will only use a tiny bit of memory. (Basically, whatever BDB's pager decides to keep in memory; this is controllable.)

Answer 2

Why do you want Perl to release the memory to the OS? You could just use a larger swap.

If you really must, do your work in a forked process, then exit.

Answer 3

In general, you cannot expect perl to release memory to the OS.

See the FAQ: How can I free an array or hash so my program shrinks?.

You usually can't. Memory allocated to lexicals (i.e. my() variables) cannot be reclaimed or reused even if they go out of scope. It is reserved in case the variables come back into scope. Memory allocated to global variables can be reused (within your program) by using undef() and/or delete().

On most operating systems, memory allocated to a program can never be returned to the system. That's why long-running programs sometimes re- exec themselves. Some operating systems (notably, systems that use mmap(2) for allocating large chunks of memory) can reclaim memory that is no longer used, but on such systems, perl must be configured and compiled to use the OS's malloc, not perl's.

It is always a good idea to read the FAQ list, also installed on your computer, before wasting your time.

For example, How can I make my Perl program take less memory? is probably relevant to your issue.

Answer 4

Try recompiling perl with the option -Uusemymalloc to use the system malloc and free. You might see some different results