How to unload a ByteArray using Actionscript 3?

Question

How do I forcefully unload a ByteArray from memory using ActionScript 3?

I have tried the following:

// First non-working solution
byteArray.length = 0;
byteArray = new ByteArray();

// Second non-working solution
for ( var i:int=0; i < byteArray.length; i++ ) {
    byteArray[i] = null;
}

Answer 1

I don't think you have anything to worry about. If System.totalMemory goes down you can relax. It may very well be the OS that doesn't reclaim the newly freed memory (in anticipation of the next time Flash Player will ask for more memory).

Try doing something else that is very memory intensive and I'm sure that you'll notice that the memory allocated to Flash Player will decrease and be used for the other process instead.

As I've understood it, memory management in modern OS's isn't intuitive from the perspective of looking at the amounts allocated to each process, or even the total amount allocated.

When I've used my Mac for 5 minutes 95% of my 3 GB RAM is used, and it will stay that way, it never goes down. That's just the way the OS handles memory.

As long as it's not needed elsewhere even processes that have quit still have memory assigned to them (this can make them launch quicker the next time, for example).