Eruby stuff with big arrays balloons apache memory use, and usage never gets let go

Ruby
1

Say, I’ve got an analysis application using eruby on an internal site,
and it doesn’t need to be perfect, but it is using a lot of memory, and
then it never lets it go. It’s got some multi-dimensional arrays of
gobs of related classes, and I want to do it this way because all the
relationships are clear. It should just run, and then the memory should
get let go when I leave the routine:

def x
gro = Grove.new
markup = gro.domymainbit
return markup
end

but the memory eaten up in gro object never gets released apparently.
Can someone suggest a method to make sure gro, or apache lets all this
memory loose?

2

Xeno C. wrote:

I guess I should add that I created all this code, I have control over
it, and it seems there must be something with the instantiation set that
is staying in memory, when I am presuming it will be garbage collected.
I am not using a memory preservation tool like mod_ruby, at least not
consciously, and I just checked and neither mod_ruby nor fastcgi are
listed by yum. I do have mod_perl in there. I may not be able to take
that out, as it is for somebody else’s stuff.

xc