js-gc

An API for Javascript to trigger the Garbage Collector

Background

js-gc is written for when there is memory-intensive code which needs to run on multiple platforms. In theory, the environment's garbage collector should run automatically. In practice, this isn't always true. Thankfully, most environments also provide a means to manually run the garbage collector. Sadly, there is not a standardized interface for this, so multi-platform support is convoluted. This API plans to make that problem less terrible.

Installation

npm install js-gc

Usage

In Node.js

var gc=require("js-gc");
/*A massive memory intense task*/
gc();

In browser code

<script src="link/to/js-gc/index.js"></script>
<script>
/*A massive memory intense task*/
window.gc();
</script>

Supported Platforms

js-gc doesn't work everywhere. It works on these platforms so far:

• Opera 7+
• Rhino
• Nashorn
• Duktape, in theory.
• JerryScript, in theory.
• IE 5+, with ActiveX controls enabled
• Chakra
• Obsolete versions of Firefox
• Node.js, but only the V8 based versions, and only if global.gc is enabled.
• V8 in certain conditions

If an unsupported environment is encountered, the gc function will be a function that doesn't do anything.