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

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();