Re: Garbage collection for objects?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg93467] Re: Garbage collection for objects?
- From: David Bailey <dave at removedbailey.co.uk>
- Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:29:50 -0500 (EST)
- References: <gf6drt$k28$1@smc.vnet.net>
Jochen Adamek wrote:
> Hello,
>
> i would like to know, if it's possible to overwrite objects, which are
> defined as parameters for functions?
>
> I made the experience, that you have to define a copy of this objects
> to change values of them.
>
> I don't know how Mathematica manage these copies. Is there a method
> like garbage collection?
>
> Shall i delete these objects manually?
>
> Best regards
>
> J.A.
>
First, it is usually not useful to think of Mathematica in terms of
another language such as Java, because the relationship is not simple.
Garbage collection is performed by reference counting, and is meant to
be invisible to the user.
You can modify a structure provided you reference it using the variable
that has it as a value. For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that
the structure that you want to modify is a list, and consider the
following three functions and a global variable containing some data:
In[2]:= foo1[ll_] := (ll[[2]] = 42);
foo2[ll_] := Module[{tmp = ll}, tmp[[2]] = 42];
In[4]:= SetAttributes[foo3, HoldFirst];
foo3[ll_] := (ll[[2]] = 42);
In[6]:= myList = {1, 2, 3, 4}
Out[6]= {1, 2, 3, 4}
The first version fails with an error because you are trying to modify
an actual list:
In[7]:= foo1[myList];
myList
During evaluation of In[7]:= Set::setps: {1,2,3,4} in the part \
assignment is not a symbol. >>
Out[8]= {1, 2, 3, 4}
The second version does not generate an error, but modifies the contents
of variable tmp - so there is no permanent effect.
In[9]:= foo2[myList];
myList
Out[10]= {1, 2, 3, 4}
This version works and actually modifies the value of the global
variable, because the HoldFirst attribute suppresses the evaluation of
myList to its value - the actual variable gets passed as the argument.
In[11]:= foo3[myList];
myList
Out[12]= {1, 42, 3, 4}
Clearly there are some fairly subtle things going on here. If you have a
variable aaa whose value is a large list (say), then the list is not
copied if you execute
bbb=aaa
However, if you subsequently modify the list held by bbb, a copy is
taken so that the results are as if the system always performed a copy!
David Bailey
http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk