Garbage Collection Issue for Tree Component

Question

Dear:
When I created a new Tree instance dynamically by following code, and clicked any tree node randomly and then I removed it via another button, but I found this instance couldn’t be removed by GC, if I just created this tree without mouse action, it can be removed by GC.
Tree Component:
-- TreeView
<mx:canvas>
<mx:Tree dataProvider="{data}"  />   // data is a XML staments
</mx:canvas>
Create Tree:
           public function createView(event:Event):void{
              var view:TreeView = new TreeView ();
              view.name="myTree";
              addChild(view);
              view=null;
Remove Tree:
           public function deleteView(event:Event):void{
              var view:TreeView= TreeView( _con.getChildByName("myTree"));
              removeChild(view);
Could someone give me some suggestion?
Thanks a lot

Answer 1

Hi ajmcfarlane,
This is my first post here. I'm fairly new to AS3 still and
have been getting my education from a number of places. The best
education i have found is from the book located at
http://www.learningactionscript3.com/
Rich Shupe address this problem of removing the child from
memory. I Downloaded your file and found 2 problems and resolved
one of them. By now you might have already solved this anyway.
To remove the child from the Display List use -->
removeChild(myChildObject);
To remove the object from memory use --> myChildObject =
null;
You did these two steps but in the incorrect order, just by
moving the 'myChildObject = null' under the removeChild code makes
it work.
I found running a few trace statements after fixing the first
problem, i found the second problem. The error of trying to remove
a child when it is no longer there.
You just need to rework the design so that the order of
events fires as you want. Below is the traces i used and the output
that is received.
function Click1(e:MouseEvent){
trace("four ", loadedcontent);
modLoader.unload();
modLoader = null;
function unloadCompleteHandler(event:Event):void{
trace("one ", loadedcontent);
removeChild(loadedcontent);
trace("two ", loadedcontent);
loadedcontent = null;
trace("three ", loadedcontent);
output
Loaded mem: 20668 KB
four [object MainTimeline]
one [object MainTimeline]
two [object MainTimeline]
three null
unLoaded mem: 23352 KB
So you can see the click event is firing of the unload first,
when i think you want that last.
I hope this has been of some help :)