Question

This is code that creates a local object inside a closure.

function A() {
    this.welcome = "Welcome";
}

var P = (function() {
    var a = new A();
    function printa() {
        console.log(a);
    }
    return {
        printa: printa
    };
})();


P.printa();

It prints:

{ welcome: 'Welcome' }

After the P=… function is executed, P gets a new object that holds a reference to a function printa(), but at this time, local variable a should be freed. Why is it not freed?
Or is it temporarily there because it’s not garbage collected?

Answer 1

a is kept referenced by the closure from the printa function.

a will be garbage collected some time after there are no more references to the printa function.