[sldev] Texture Garbage Collection (was Re: UMA Grid - Offline for a bit)

[James Cook]

There is garbage collection, but as you noted it is very slow. 
Basically we scan the entire world dataset, including inventory items, 
region state files (textures on objects, textures as inventory items 
inside objects) and assets (notecards and script text).  Anything that 
looks like a texture UUID is added to a list, then textures (well, all 
assets really) that aren't on the list are deleted.

So if you have a raw key reference to a texture inside a script the 
texture will not be garbage collected.  If it is, then our garbage 
collector is broken.  (It has broken in the past.  We don't immediately 
delete the garbage -- we keep it around for a few days just in case we 
screwed something up so we can put it back.)

If you do something silly like this, though, the texture will be garbage 
collected:

key texture_id = (key)("12345678-abcd-abcd-" + "abcd-123456789012");

:-)

James


Jonathan Freedman wrote:
> I once asked a Linden about this (as it related to a libsecondlife 
> project). The answer I got was that there is garbage collection, but it 
> takes quite a while for it to kick in. And only if the texture is not in 
> anyones inventory, or an in-world object. I don't believe it took into 
> account textures on items in inventory. Similarly, if the texture is 
> only ever referenced via key in a LSL script, it may be a wise idea to 
> keep a copy in your inventory.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Jonathan Freedman / otakup0pe Neumann
> VP Operations
> Pleiades Consulting
> 
> Jesse Nesbitt wrote:
>> Actually, I don't even think those vanish.
>>
>> On 4/7/07, *Dale Glass* <dale at daleglass.net 
>> <mailto:dale at daleglass.net>> wrote:
>>
>>     В сообщении от 8 апреля 2007 02:08 Callum Lerwick написал(a):
>>     > You should get a refund on your "upload tax" if you later delete
>>     > the last copy. ;P
>>
>>     I thought that textures never fully vanished in SL, except the
>>     autogenerated baked ones.
>>
>>     You still can refer to a texture by key even if there aren't 
>> copies in
>>     anybody's inventory anymore, AFAIK.
>>
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>> -- 
>> --Jesse
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