I'm a bit curious about what happens to an array once it's no longer referenced by any pointers. There's no "destroy" function to get rid of old arrays, so I'm assuming they get garbage collected?

Specifically, I'm going to have a case where I'm going to be shuffling arrays around like this:

int [] array00 = new int[10]int [] array01 = new int[10]int [] array02 = new int[10]int [] array03 = new int[10]; do stuff with arrays, and every once in a while:array03 = array02array02 = array01array01 = array00array00 = new int[10]

The array that array03 used to point to gets discarded, and array00 gets a new array initialized to zeros. But would it be better to do something like:

int [] tempArray = array03array03 = array02array02 = array01array01 = array00array00 = tempArrayZeroArray(array00)       ; iterates through the array setting each element to 0

That way the original arrays are reused, but you have to go through the iteration process to reset array00.

My post was garbage too, sorry.

I would assume that a system similar to script-enforced http://www.creationkit.com/Persistence_(Papyrus) is used here, so that once an array becomes inaccessible it would be cleaned up.

I don't know of any reliable way in which this could be tested, though. I don't think this information is available anywhere on the wiki. Perhaps we could get a developer to weigh in here?

Cipscis

That’s correct, arrays are automatically cleaned up by the Papyrus garbage collector when no variable points at them anymore.

Thanks. I added that info to the http://www.creationkit.com/Arrays_(Papyrus)#Assigning.2FPassing_Arrays article on the wiki under Assigning/Passing Arrays.

Turns out in my application I'll be processing each element in the last array right before I shuffle them around, so I can zero it while I'm at it and just recycle them, but this is still good to know.