Nim memory management
!!! warning This auditors' handbook is frozen and obsolete; the Nim language manual alongside other Nim documentation, Status Nim style guide, Chronos guides, and Nim by Example supercede it.
Nim memory management is on a per-type basis.
Plain objects and char and numerical types are allocated on the stack.
Sequences and strings are allocated on the heap but have value semantics. They are copied on assignment
Ref types are allocated on the heap and have reference semantics, i.e. an unique instance can be held by multiple variables and only when all those variables go out-of-scope is the ref type discarded.
By default Nim uses a deferred reference counting GC. Additionally, if the type can lead to cycles, Nim will add "mark-and-sweep" passes to collect them.
Destructors
TODO
Nim allocator
Nim GCs are backed by a TLSF allocator which allows Nim to provide soft real-time guarantees if needed.
Analyzing memory leaks
Nim can be compiled with -d:useMalloc to bypass the TLSF allocator and directly use malloc/free