Garbage collection for repeated animation

[chenxin]

Let's say I have a repeated animation, like this: 

 

const tl = new TimelineMax({
  repeat: -1, 
})
tl.to(...)

 

Q1:  If I pause the animation by calling tl.pause() , when will this animation be garbage collected?

Q2:  If I kill the animation by calling tl.kill(), when will this animation be garbage collected ?

Q3:  For a repeated animation that has already been paused, is it necessary to call Kill() method?

 

 

[GreenSock]

6 hours ago, chenxin said:

Q1:  If I pause the animation by calling tl.pause() , when will this animation be garbage collected?

Pausing an animation doesn't make it available for garbage collection (otherwise what if you wanted to resume()?) 

 

6 hours ago, chenxin said:

Q2:  If I kill the animation by calling tl.kill(), when will this animation be garbage collected ?

That's up to the browser. GSAP doesn't control when garbage collection occurs. As long as you killed the animation and you no longer maintain any references to it in your own code (like a variable), the browser will sweep it away the next chance it gets. 

 

6 hours ago, chenxin said:

Q3:  For a repeated animation that has already been paused, is it necessary to call kill() method?

If you want to make it available for garbage collection, yes. 

 

To be clear, the global timeline has autoRemoveChildren enabled which means that when any of its child animation completes, it gets removed and GSAP no longer maintains references to it, thus it can be garbage collected (assuming you don't maintain your own references to it). 

 

Does that help? 

[chenxin]

It helped a lot, thank you!