Memory management AS3

Question

My AS3 application basically does the following (pseudo code from main application class) 3 or 4 times by adding custom objects to stage:

_movieClipClassVariable = new MyCustomSpriteSubclass();     
_movieClipClassVariable.addEventListener(MyEvents.READY, function(event:Event):void {
            _hideLoading();
            mcHolder.addChild(_movieClipClassVariable);                               
        });                     

_movieClipClassVariable.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, myClickHandler); 


private function coverClickHandler(event:Event):void
{           
    ...
}

What is the right way to allow Garbage Collector to recycle _movieClipClassVariable after it is not necessary? Assign null to it? Remove all listeners? Use weak reference for listeners?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I would say all of the above.

I recommend reading Grant Skinners articles of Resource Management. Also take a look at his slides from his Resource management talk.

There is quite a lot of information out there on this subject, and those two links are the best resources I have found.

Answer 2

In order to get use of garbage collector you should consider:

1. Not defining handler methods inside the X.addEventListener() call
2. Remove all event listeners on the object you want to free up from memory
3. Make the object null 4.(optional) you can force garbage collector calling system.gc();