Beej's Bit Bucket
a day ago
- Object pools reuse objects to reduce garbage collection overhead and performance hitches.
- Garbage collectors handle memory automatically but can cause delays when many temporary objects are created.
- An object pool maintains a list of reusable objects; objects are borrowed and returned instead of allocated and freed.
- If no idle object is available, the pool allocates a new one; otherwise, it reuses an existing object from the free list.
- The number of allocated objects stabilizes as the pool adjusts to demand, avoiding unnecessary allocations.
- The free list can be cleared (e.g., with a 'Collect' button) to shrink the pool when it becomes too large.
- Objects should be zeroed or sanitized when returned to the pool to prevent data leaks.
- In JavaScript, a stack (Array with push and pop) can implement the object pool, passing a constructor to define the object type.