#4029: ghci leaks memory when loading a file
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Reporter: blarsen | Owner:
Type: bug | Status: new
Priority: normal | Component: GHCi
Version: | Keywords: memory leak
Os: Unknown/Multiple | Testcase:
Architecture: Unknown/Multiple | Failure: Compile-time performance bug
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In the 6.12 series, ghci leaks memory when loading definitions. This
appears to be a regression from previous releases. The problem appears in
both 6.12.1 and 6.12.2, but not in 6.8.3 or 6.10.4.
As a test, take the attached Hello World file, fire up ghci, and :load
Hello.hs. Watch the memory usage of ghci---each time you repeat the load
command, the memory usage of the process grows. (It grows slowly on this
simple example, but on a real project, the growth can be several megabytes
per :load.)
I discovered this due to my workflow. When programming Haskell, I
typically use emacs with haskell-mode, and frequently reload the
definitions of the code I am working on. After upgrading to 6.12.1, after
coding for some time, I noticed my 8GB machine was swapping. (It is
faster to :reload the file rather than :load, and reloading doesn't appear
to suffer from the memory leak, but sometimes I switch between modules and
:reload is not applicable.)
My workaround for now is to regularly restart my ghci processes to prevent
their memory usage from growing so much that my system starts swapping.
I have observed this bug on 32- and 64-bit GHCi on various versions of
Ubuntu, on both Intel and AMD processors.
--
Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/4029>
GHC <http://www.haskell.org/ghc/>
The Glasgow Haskell Compiler
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