Question

I’m using gloss to create am RTS game in Haskell, but I’ve noticed that even a very simple program will occupy more and more memory as it runs. The following program, for example, will gradually increase its memory use (it will require ~0.025mb per second ).

module Main (
    main
)
where

import Graphics.Gloss
import Graphics.Gloss.Interface.IO.Game

main = 
    playIO (InWindow "glossmem" (500, 500) (0,0)) white 10 0
    (\world -> return (translate (-250) 0 (text $ show world)))
    (\event -> (\world -> return world))
    (\timePassed -> (\world -> return $ world + timePassed))

I’ve tried limiting the heap size at runtime but that just causes the program to crash when it hits the limit. I’m concerned this behaviour will become a performance issue when I have a more complex world, is there a way to use gloss such that this won’t be an issue? Or am I using the wrong tool for the job?

Answer 1

Thanks, I fixed this in gloss-1.7.7.1. It was a typical laziness-induced space leak in the code that manages the frame timing for animations. Your example program now runs in constant space.