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:
“Perhaps a man like you can’t realize what it is to have a conscience and no memory at all. Do you imagine it’s pleasant to be ashamed of something you can’t even remember?”
—Orson Welles (1915–1985)
“The office ... make[s] its incumbent a repair man behind a dyke. No sooner is one leak plugged than it is necessary to dash over and stop another that has broken out. There is no end to it.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)