# Where does all the memory go?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/where-does-all-the-memory-go/111928>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [August 13, 2007, 4:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/where-does-all-the-memory-go/111928 "2007-08-13T16:35:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kevin\_evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/50afbb/32.png) [@kevin\_evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kevin_evans)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 4:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/where-does-all-the-memory-go/111928/1 "2007-08-13T16:35:20Z")

</div>

I’ve a method within an Event model…

def batch\_import(folder)  
require ‘find’

```
  Find::find("#{SOURCE_PATH}/#{folder}") do |path|
      if path[-3..-1].downcase == 'jpg'
        @photo = Picture.new()
        @photo.data = File.new(path)
        @photo.filename = File.basename(path)
        @photo.caption = "none"
        self.pictures << @photo
        self.save
      end
  end

```

end

Where Picture is …

class Picture \< FlexImage::Model  
file\_store ‘pictures’

belongs\_to :event, :counter\_cache =\> true  
acts\_as\_list :scope =\> :event

acts\_as\_solr :fields =\> [:caption]

end  
and Event is…

class Event \< ActiveRecord::Base  
has\_many :pictures, :order =\> ‘position’,:dependent=\>:destroy

When I run the code it uses a massive 1.5GB of memory to process 28  
pictures. Ruby eventually returns the memory once you’ve browsed to  
another view, but still?!?

Anyone have any ideas how/why?  
should I be forcing garbage collection on @photo after each image?!?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kevin\_evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/50afbb/32.png) [@kevin\_evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kevin_evans)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 6:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/where-does-all-the-memory-go/111928/2 "2007-08-13T18:05:33Z")

</div>

On 8/13/07, kevin evans [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> ```
> @photo.filename = File.basename(path)
> 
> ```
> 
> file\_store ‘pictures’  
> has\_many :pictures, :order =\> ‘position’,:dependent=\>:destroy
> 
> When I run the code it uses a massive 1.5GB of memory to process 28  
> pictures. Ruby eventually returns the memory once you’ve browsed to  
> another view, but still?!?
> 
> Anyone have any ideas how/why?  
> should I be forcing garbage collection on @photo after each image?!?

I don’t know if that’ll matter. It looks like FlexImage is reading the  
files into memory, and it still might be referenced in Event’s  
self.pictures array.

–  
Rick O.  
[http://lighthouseapp.com](http://lighthouseapp.com)  
[http://weblog.techno-weenie.net](http://weblog.techno-weenie.net)  
[http://mephistoblog.com](http://mephistoblog.com)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kevin\_evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/50afbb/32.png) [@kevin\_evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kevin_evans)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 11:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/where-does-all-the-memory-go/111928/3 "2007-08-13T23:17:52Z")

</div>

Have you tried just doing the Find::find stuff without a body and seeing  
if that accumulates a ton of memory? If it doesn’t, then you might want  
to explicitly nil out the @photo after it’s been saved. Likewise, it  
look like you never close all the Files you are opening. You might want  
to watch out for that.

Finally, how big are these jpgs? Are they super-compressed, so that they  
actually do take up a ton of memory when loaded?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kevin\_evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/50afbb/32.png) [@kevin\_evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kevin_evans)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 11:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/where-does-all-the-memory-go/111928/4 "2007-08-13T23:33:18Z")

</div>

Thanks for the replies.

Bryan, Soory I’m a bit of a ruby newbie (still!!!), do you mean use  
some form of syntax for the Find that returns all images as an array,  
for processing?

also @photo = nil (is that what you mean?

On Aug 13, 10:17 pm, Bryan D. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kevin\_evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/50afbb/32.png) [@kevin\_evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kevin_evans)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 11:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/where-does-all-the-memory-go/111928/5 "2007-08-13T23:54:24Z")

</div>

Actually, on further testing it does look like it the 'self.pictures  
\<\< @photo ’ that eats up all the memory. Yes, each image is very  
large. So time to look for a new solution. Shame.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kevin\_evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/50afbb/32.png) [@kevin\_evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kevin_evans)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 11:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/where-does-all-the-memory-go/111928/6 "2007-08-13T23:54:08Z")

</div>

kevin evans wrote:

> Thanks for the replies.
> 
> Bryan, Soory I’m a bit of a ruby newbie (still!!!), do you mean use  
> some form of syntax for the Find that returns all images as an array,  
> for processing?
> 
> also @photo = nil (is that what you mean?
> 
> On Aug 13, 10:17 pm, Bryan D. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)

In my first suggestion, I’m saying that you should try

```
  Find::find("#{SOURCE_PATH}/#{folder}") do |path|
  end

```

and watch the memory usage of just that alone and see if it’s poor. I’m  
not familiar with that library personally, so I’d want to verify that  
it’s not the memory hog.

You have it right on the other one, @photo = nil will make sure that  
reference goes away which could lead to quicker garbage collection.  
Actually, it looks like @photo should really be a local variable, since  
it’s lifetime should only be within the Find::find block, so drop the @  
from @photo.