ghc releasing memory during compilation

[Ketil Malde]

Simon Marlow <simonmarhaskell at gmail.com> writes:

> Bulat Ziganshin wrote:

>> and moreover, we should perform compaction immediately when swapping grows.
>> imagine for example algorithm that had 80 mb residency and runs on a
>> machine with 100 mb free. performing compacting GC each time when
>> memory usage grows to 100 mb should be better strategy than waiting
>> for 160 mb usage. of course, concrete calculation whether to start GC
>> or not, is a delicate task, but at least it should be performed on
>> each minor GC

> I'd like to urge you to have a go at implementing some of these
> strategies.

I must admit that I am slightly skeptical to complicated heuristics
here, since it seems actual performance would depend a lot on memory
manangement policies of the underlying OS.

However, I find that setting GHC to use the equivalent of +RTS -Mxxx
where xxx is about 80% of physical RAM generally works well.
Currently, I do this through a C file reading values from sysconf(),
which is a bit cumbersome.  A way to set these defaults though the ghc
command line would be welcome.

-k
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants