A memory leak, in computer science (or leakage, in this context), occurs when a computer program acquires memory but fails to release it back to the operating system. In object-oriented programming, a memory leak may happen when an object is stored in memory but cannot be accessed by the running code. A memory leak has symptoms similar to a number of other problems (see below) and generally can only be diagnosed by a programmer with access to the program source code.
Because they can exhaust available system memory as an application runs, memory leaks are often the cause of or a contributing factor to software aging.
Read more about Memory Leak: Consequences, Programming Issues, RAII, Reference Counting and Cyclic References, Effects, Other Memory Consumers, A Simple Example in C
Famous quotes containing the words memory and/or leak:
“The pure serene of memory in one man,—
A ripple widening from a single stone
Winding around the waters of the world.”
—Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)
“One leak will sink a ship: and one sin will destroy a sinner.”
—John Bunyan (1628–1688)