From: Yao-Sheng Cheng
Subject: How to free the memory occupied by instance-object?
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 15:14:03 +0000
Message-ID: <30u0fr$e1v@debbie.cc.nctu.edu.tw>

   I have a problem that how to release the memory of objects created 
through make-instance. Does the MCL garbage collector is so clever to 
collect these memory back or I must explicitly call some functions to 
free these memory?

From: Scott D. Anderson
Subject: Re: How to free the memory occupied by instance-object?
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 15:48:00 +0000
Message-ID: <ANDERSON.94Jul24114800@lindy.cs.umass.edu>

In article <··········@debbie.cc.nctu.edu.tw> Yao-Sheng Cheng <········@twin1.src.ncu.edu.tw> writes:

      I have a problem that how to release the memory of objects created 
   through make-instance. Does the MCL garbage collector is so clever to 
   collect these memory back or I must explicitly call some functions to 
   free these memory?

Instances are no different from any other Lisp thing: if the instance not
accessible, it will be garbage collected.  For example:

(setq x (make-instance ...))

This instance is now accessible, via the symbol x.  If you want it to be garbage
collected, you make it inaccessible, by making x point to something else:

(setq x nil)

Now the instance is garbage (if it's not accessible any other way), and will be
reclaimed sometime.

Generally, you never have to worry about garbage collection.  There are no
functions you need to call to reclaim this memory.  Why do you say this is a
problem to you?

Scott D. Anderson
········@cs.umass.edu