[removed] Create and destroy class instance through class method

Question

I\'m trying to figure out how to delete an object through a class method. I would like to be able to create a class that has a destroy method that releases the object from memor

Answer 1

You can only manually delete properties of objects. Thus:

var container = {};

container.instance = new class();

delete container.instance;

However, this won't work on any other pointers. Therefore:

var container = {};

container.instance = new class();

var pointer = container.instance;

delete pointer; // false ( ie attempt to delete failed )

Furthermore:

delete container.instance; // true ( ie attempt to delete succeeded, but... )

pointer; // class { destroy: function(){} }

So in practice, deletion is only useful for removing object properties themselves, and is not a reliable method for removing the code they point to from memory.

A manually specified destroy method could unbind any event listeners. Something like:

function class(){
  this.properties = { /**/ }

  function handler(){ /**/ }

  something.addEventListener( 'event', handler, false );

  this.destroy = function(){
    something.removeEventListener( 'event', handler );
  }
}