Will this cause a memory leak?

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#1

I am not familiar with protecting against memory leaks although I understand the concept. I disconnect my events and everything when I need to. However, I was recently creating a custom loading screen and then realized I don’t actually know if what I’m doing at the end will cause a memory leak. So this is basically my code:

local Gui = script.Parent

-- Other code for preloading and stuff

Gui:Destroy() -- Called as the last line after I've disconnected two events I use.

My question is this: Will destroying the gui (and as a result, its descendants, including the local script) cause all the variables and connections declared in the local script to be garbage collected? I would think it would but I don’t actually know and I can’t find anywhere on the devforum stating this.

#2

Taken from API reference
image

As far as I know, script instances only serve to contain/hold the script and provide it a shortcut directory for its functions (the script global). Deleting the script instance won’t terminate the script that’s executed in it, the script will have to terminate itself either by reaching the end or ending a loop.

1 Like
#3

If the events being connected are on that Gui object, then destroying it will automatically disconnect any connected events.

#4

No it will not cause a memory leak… (Unless you have references to it elsewhere that won’t be automatically removed, like in a table. iirc)

I think I remember a function a while back called :Remove(), that would cause a memory leak (iirc), but :Destroy() won’t.

#5

Thank you. I decided to test what you said with two test.

Test #1:

-- This tested if the script would run and finish executing without the script instance. The result was that it would.
script:Destroy()
for i=0,500 do
	print("Test")
	task.wait()
end

Test #2:

-- This tested if the connections in the script would be disconnected when the script instance was destroyed. The result was they would.
workspace.ChildRemoved:Connect(function(child : Instance)
	print(child.Name," Removed")
end)

workspace:FindFirstChild("Part"):Destroy()
task.wait()
script:Destroy()
workspace:FindFirstChild("Part"):Destroy()