How to destroy a JavaScript object

Question

Recently  I came across one of my application which consumes too much memory and increasing by 10 MB sec   So  I like to know the best way to destroy JavaScript object and variables so memory consumption stay down and my FF can t get destroyed   I am calling two of my JavaScript in every 8 sec interval without reloading the page   function refresh             table info   remove            table   hide        if  refreshTimer            clearTimeout refreshTimer           refreshTimer   null             document getElementById  refresh topology   disabled true           lt div id  preload xml  gt  lt  div gt    html   lt img src  pic dataload gif  alt  loading data    gt  lt h3 gt Loading Data    lt  h3 gt    prependTo     td 123             topo   hide            root   remove        show topology        How can I see which variable cause Memory overhead and method to stop execution of that process

User · Accepted Answer

You could put all of your code under one namespace like this:

var namespace = {};

namespace.someClassObj = {};

delete namespace.someClassObj;

Using the delete keyword will delete the reference to the property, but on the low level the JavaScript garbage collector (GC) will get more information about which objects to be reclaimed.

You could also use Chrome Developer Tools to get a memory profile of your app, and which objects in your app are needing to be scaled down.

User · Answer

I was facing a problem like this  and had the idea of simply changing the innerHTML of the problematic object s children   adiv innerHTML     lt div    gt  the original html that js uses  lt  div gt      Seems dirty  but it saved my life  as it works

User · Answer

While the existing answers have given solutions to solve the issue and the second half of the question  they do not provide an answer to the self discovery aspect of the first half of the question that is in bold    quot How can I see which variable causes memory overhead     quot   It may not have been as robust 3 years ago  but the Chrome Developer Tools  quot Profiles quot  section is now quite powerful and feature rich  The Chrome team has an insightful article on using it and thus also how garbage collection  GC  works in javascript  which is at the core of this question  Since delete is basically the root of the currently accepted answer by Yochai Akoka  it s important to remember what delete does  It s irrelevant if not combined with the concepts of how GC works in the next two answers  if there s an existing reference to an object it s not cleaned up  The answers are more correct  but probably not as appreciated because they require more thought than just writing  delete   Yes  one possible solution may be to use delete  but it won t matter if there s another reference to the memory leak  Another answer appropriately mentions circular references and the Chrome team documentation can provide much more clarity as well as the tools to verify the cause  Since delete was mentioned here  it also may be useful to provide the resource Understanding Delete  Although it does not get into any of the actual solution which is really related to javascript s garbage collector

User · Answer

You can t delete objects  they are removed when there are no more references to them   You can delete references with delete   However  if you have created circular references in your objects you may have to de-couple some things

User · Answer

Structure your code so that all your temporary objects are located inside closures instead of global namespace   global object properties and go out of scope when you ve done with them  GC will take care of the rest

[javascript] How to destroy a JavaScript object?

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