JavaScript Create and destroy class instance through class method

Question

I m trying to figure out how to delete an object through a class method  I would like to be able to create a class that has a destroy method that releases the object from memory  So far  the research I ve done has been inconclusive  I understand that garbage collection will eventually take care of the object  but I d like a more definitive way to destroy it  Is this possible      class constructor var class   function           this destroy   function               instance var instance   new class    instance destroy    console log instance      should be null or undefined

User · Accepted Answer

No  JavaScript is automatically garbage collected  the object s memory will be reclaimed only if the GC decides to run and the object is eligible for collection   Seeing as that will happen automatically as required  what would be the purpose of reclaiming the memory explicitly

User · Answer

1- There is no way to actually destroy an object in javascript  but using delete  we could remove a reference from an object   var obj       obj mypointer   null  delete obj mypointer    2- The important point about the delete keyword is that it does not actually destroy the object BUT if only after deleting that reference to the object  there is no other reference left in the memory pointed to the same object  that object would be marked as collectible  The delete keyword deletes the reference but doesn t GC the actual object  it means if you have several references of the same object  the object will be collected just after you delete all the pointed references   3- there are also some tricks and workarounds that could help us out  when we want to make sure we do not leave any memory leaks behind  for instance if you have an array consisting several objects  without any other pointed reference to those objects  if you recreate the array all those objects would be killed  For instance if you have var array            overriding the value of the array like array      would remove the references to the two objects inside the array and those two objects would be marked as collectible   4- for your solution the easiest way is just this   var storage       storage instance   new Class      since  storage instance  is your only reference to the object  whenever you wanted to destroy do this  storage instance   null     OR delete storage instance    As mentioned above  either setting storage instance   null or delete storage instance would suffice to remove the reference to the object and allow it to be cleaned up by the GC  The difference is that if you set it to null then the storage object still has a property called instance  with the value null   If you delete storage instance then the storage object no longer has a property named instance   and WHAT ABOUT destroy method     the paradoxical point here is if you use instance destroy in the destroy function you have no access to the actual instance pointer  and it won t let you delete it   The only way is to pass the reference to the destroy function and then delete it      Class constructor var Class   function           this destroy   function  baseObject  refName             delete baseObject refName                  instanciate var storage       storage instance   new Class    storage instance destroy object   instance    console log storage instance      now it is undefined   BUT if I were you I would simply stick to the first solution and delete the object like this   storage instance   null     OR delete storage instance    WOW it was too much

User · Answer

You can only manually delete properties of objects  Thus   var container        container instance   new class     delete container instance    However  this won t work on any other pointers  Therefore   var container        container instance   new class     var pointer   container instance   delete pointer     false   ie attempt to delete failed     Furthermore   delete container instance     true   ie attempt to delete succeeded  but       pointer     class   destroy  function         So in practice  deletion is only useful for removing object properties themselves  and is not a reliable method for removing the code they point to from memory   A manually specified destroy method could unbind any event listeners  Something like   function class      this properties               function handler              something addEventListener   event   handler  false       this destroy   function        something removeEventListener   event   handler

[javascript] JavaScript: Create and destroy class instance through class method

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