Suspected iTool Memory Leaks

QUESTION: Try this in IDL 6.0:

   IDL> iPlot

Then exit iPlot by using the mouse, without plotting anything. Then, type this:

   IDL> Help, /Heap

It seems iTools leaves possibly hundreds of stale objects and pointers on the heap. What's the rub? Was that a planned feature for the illuminati to exploit, or is it a bug? Is there a solution aside from .Reset?

ANSWER: This is not a bug, nor is it leaking memory. This is just a quick look at the infrastructure of the iTool system. To create the system itself (which is a sort of singleton object) requires a great deal of "stuff". That is what you see here. It only has to be created once for the iTool system to establish itself. Exiting a particular iTool does not "destroy" the system. This makes it much faster to implement the next iTool you call.

It you would like to get rid of this infrastructure (and have the next iTool call reinstall the system all over again), type the ITReset command:

   IDL> ITReset

All these heap pointers and objects will disappear.