Question

Initially I had ten arraycollections declared in a flex module, which I thought, were causing a memory leak. So I separated them in a single class, which I would clean using the “destroy” method I created inside it. Would this work?

I hate the question title excuse me. But I wouldn’t write it like “Seducing the garbage collector”

        [Bindable]
        public class Cfd
        {
            private static var instance:Cfd = new Cfd();
            private var _cfds:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection();

            // Constructor
            public function Cfd(){
                if (instance) { throw new Error('Cannot create a new instance.  Must use Cfd.getInstance().') }
            }

            public static function getInstance():Cfd{
                return instance;
            }

            public function get cfds():ArrayCollection{
                return _cfds;
            }
            public function set cfds(value:ArrayCollection):void{
                _cfds = value;
            }

            public function destroy():void{
                if(_cfds != null){
                    _cfds.removeAll();
                }
                }
}

Answer 1

Whenever you use Singletons like this, you pretty much guarantee a memory leak, because you’re probably listening to the ArrayCollection (and maybe items within it) from all over the place. When you explicitly provide a reference to an object through a getter/setter pair, you can add the listener in the setter and removie it when the value is reset.

Check out http://www.developria.com/2010/08/rethinking-addeventlistener-an.html for more on what’s happening.

For more on why you should avoid Singletons http://misko.hevery.com/2008/08/17/singletons-are-pathological-liars