On Mon 30/07/18 01:58 , Ben Grasset operato...@gmail.com sent: > I was even able to successfully actually fix some of the leaks, but others > boiled down to a "node" being created as a local variable in the middle of > some 1000+ line method, getting assigned to the "left" or "right" property > of some other globally visible node, and then never being freed. > To add to that, some of then actually *could not* be freed even when I > tried to do so without raising an untraceable access violation later in the > compilation process, also, which means the compiler is basically knowingly > relying on undebuggable undefined behaviour in multiple places that could > easily be affected or altered by anything else anywhere else in the > codebase at any time. > The way-too-short, highly undescriptive naming of variables doesn't > exactly help, either! "hp" and "p" are not good variable names. They really > aren't! > > Overall, I'm not trying to put blame on anyone in particular here, but as > someone who loves using FPC and would like to see it continue to grow, it > would be nice if we could collectively address some of these basic, > fundamental issues (which I'd be happy to help with myself, of course.) >
I too love Free Pascal and seek to improve it. If you've found a fix, by all means submit it as a patch in the bug tracker. I've noticed that the compiler doesn't use try...finally blocks to help with freeing blocks. I'm not sure why this is the case, but might be speed related. More complex refactoring might require deeper planning and approval from Florian. For example, the node construction relies a lot on global variables (especially current_procinfo) that could possibly use some improvement. I think a big issue with refactoring is the amount of testing required because of the numerous target platforms. Don't be disheartened though. With enough eyes, all bugs are shallow! Gareth aka. Kit _______________________________________________ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
