Integrate perl

[perl5.git] / pod / perlfaq3.pod

diff --git a/pod/perlfaq3.pod b/pod/perlfaq3.pod
index 7d3d4d3..85f7968 100644 (file)
--- a/pod/perlfaq3.pod
+++ b/pod/perlfaq3.pod
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 =head1 NAME
 
-perlfaq3 - Programming Tools ($Revision: 1.18 $, $Date: 2002/04/09 17:11:16 $)
+perlfaq3 - Programming Tools ($Revision: 1.22 $, $Date: 2002/05/06 13:11:13 $)
 
 =head1 DESCRIPTION
 
@@ -212,6 +212,11 @@ environment for Windows that supports Perl development.
 ( http://helpconsulting.net/visiperl/ )
 From Help Consulting, for Windows.
 
+=item OptiPerl
+
+( http://www.optiperl.com/ ) is a Windows IDE with simulated CGI
+environment, including debugger and syntax highlighting editor.
+
 =back
 
 For Windows there's also the
@@ -242,11 +247,11 @@ specifically for programming, such as Textpad
 ( http://www.textpad.com/ ) and UltraEdit
 ( http://www.ultraedit.com/ ), among others.
 
-If you are using MacOS, the same concerns apply.  MacPerl
+If you are using Mac OS, the same concerns apply.  MacPerl
 (for Classic environments) comes with a simple editor.
 Popular external editors are BBEdit ( http://www.bbedit.com/ )
-or Alpha ( http://alpha.olm.net/ ). MacOS X users can use Unix
-editors as well.
+or Alpha ( http://www.kelehers.org/alpha/ ). Mac OS X users can
+use Unix editors as well.
 
 =over 4
 
@@ -588,7 +593,7 @@ copy, you'll have to sacrifice the memory needed to make one.
 
 For "big" data stores (i.e. ones that exceed available memory) consider
 using one of the DB modules to store it on disk instead of in RAM. This
-will incur a penalty in access time, but that's probably better that
+will incur a penalty in access time, but that's probably better than
 causing your hard disk to thrash due to massive swapping.
 
 =back
@@ -612,17 +617,14 @@ No, Perl's garbage collection system takes care of this.
 
 =head2 How can I free an array or hash so my program shrinks?
 
-You can't.  On most operating systems, memory allocated to a program
-can never be returned to the system.  That's why long-running programs
-sometimes re-exec themselves.  Some operating systems (notably,
-FreeBSD and Linux) allegedly reclaim large chunks of memory that is no
-longer used, but it doesn't appear to happen with Perl (yet).  The Mac
-appears to be the only platform that will reliably (albeit, slowly)
-return memory to the OS.
-
-We've had reports that on Linux (Redhat 5.1) on Intel, C<undef
-$scalar> will return memory to the system, while on Solaris 2.6 it
-won't.  In general, try it yourself and see.
+You usually can't. On most operating systems, memory
+allocated to a program can never be returned to the system.
+That's why long-running programs sometimes re-exec
+themselves. Some operating systems (notably, systems that
+use mmap(2) for allocating large chunks of memory) can
+reclaim memory that is no longer used, but on such systems,
+perl must be configured and compiled to use the OS's malloc,
+not perl's.
 
 However, judicious use of my() on your variables will help make sure
 that they go out of scope so that Perl can free up that space for