Memory use discussion

Strad - Mon Sep 07 12:10:27 EDT 2009
strings are probably the thing. The String table in DOORS doesn't empty so a DXL ninja will use strings as sparingly as possible...

It's also worth a quick note that DOORS afaik doesn't yet support large memory sizes, so even on a 64bit system with huge amounts of ram DOORS will cap out it's memory use at 2G. (IIRC there is a command line switch to enable DOORS to use 3Gig of RAM, but that's the limit)

Peter_Albert - Tue Sep 08 04:31:06 EDT 2009
Strad is right as regards the string table, but IIRC also the excessive definition of regular expressions within subroutines creates memory leaks, and, similarly important, it slows down the execution of the script significantly. If you have an issue on either memory or runtime, I'd suggest defining global regular expressions instead of defining them locally.

Peter

dpechacek - Tue Sep 08 08:59:47 EDT 2009
Not to mention if you open modules which have layout DXL or which are linked to modules which get opened in the background which do, that DXL also executes and clutters the string table. I have seen DOORS not release memory even on a module with no DXL. It is quite frustrating. I wish instead of making DOORS prettier or adding features few use, they'd focus on cleaning up memory and get to work enabling garbage collection in DXL. Of course with the Jazz platform now, they'll probably just ignore it since when DOORS gets fully implemented in Jazz, DXL will no longer be based on the same codebase as it is now.

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llandale - Thu Sep 10 12:05:34 EDT 2009

Albert and Pechacek are right.

Its either too much string manipulation or too many modules open at once, or both.

Static regexp should be defined globally since using the 'regexp' command is VERY string intensive and VERY slow. Dynamic but frequently used regexp can be defined once and stored in a global skip using the string as the key, then search the skip before defining the regexp next time.

Use Buffers frequently. However, creating and deleting a Buffer is VERY slow; frequently called functions that stage in Buffers can define and create one 'globally' that only that function uses, saving a lot of time.

Buffer g_bufGetValue = create()
string GetValue(Object obj)
{  g_bufGetValue = ""     // Erase Buffer
   .. use g_bufGetValue
   return(stringOf(g_bufGetValue))
}  // end GetValue()

Understand that when you open a module, you also open its link modules and often other modules, invisibly, as well. You should fairly frequently close out all residually open modules in your big-scoped scripts.

• Louie