Memory leak
Memory that is no longer needed stays allocated while the program runs.
What is a memory leak?
A memory leak occurs when memory no longer needed remains unnecessarily retained. Memory demand may grow during extended use. Automatic garbage collection does not fundamentally prevent this: a still-reachable object may be obsolete for the application yet remain retained. Briefly high memory use alone does not prove a leak.
In a fictional portal, closed document views remain in a globally reachable list. Their data stays reachable despite no longer being needed. The team investigates retaining references and the views’ lifecycle. After a correction, repeated opening and closing is compared under suitable conditions. What matters is whether unnecessary retention disappears; a single instantaneous value or a restart does not explain the cause.
Sources
Related terms
- Runtime environmentThe environment in which a program executes and accesses the functions made available to it.
- DebuggingSystematically narrowing down an error’s cause through behaviour, data and program execution.
- Unit testA focused check of a small, defined part of software, such as a rule or function.
- Cache stampedeA cache stampede occurs when concurrent cache misses trigger the same expensive calculation or data query repeatedly.
- BackpressureBackpressure adjusts incoming data to the receiver’s processing capacity through signals to slow down or pause.
- Race conditionA result depends on the timing of overlapping accesses and can therefore be wrong.
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