Question

I’ve been using javascript module pattern for while.

I showed an example of a module pattern to one of my coworkers. He said that the following code can make a memory leak.

var test = (function(){

   var events = {
      // my functions go here
   }

   return {
     // return something
   }

}());

he said that since events variable is an object and i’m not setting null for it, it can cause a memory leak even if I set null for test later.

As far as I know, the above code snippet is okay because I’m not passing events around.

I need advices!

Answer 1

I think your code is fine. Memory leaks in closures happen when you have a reference to a DOM element, because of the circular reference (foo holds on to element, and element holds on to foo, so they can never be garbage collected):

function foo(element, a, b) {
    element.onlick = function(a, b) { /* uses a and b */ };
}

My source for this belief is here

But others might know of another problem …