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Mobile App Development vocabulary · Testing, Crashes and Performance

Memory leak

Meaning in mobile app development, with examples

nounCommon term

In mobile app development, memory leak means: A bug in which an app keeps memory it no longer needs, so memory use grows over time until the app slows down or the system closes it.

In Turkish: bellek sızıntısı

How it is used

In Swift, a common cause is a retain cycle, where two objects hold strong references to each other; on Android, holding a reference to an Activity after it is destroyed. Developers find leaks with Xcode Instruments, the Android Studio profiler and LeakCanary.

Example sentences

  1. There's a memory leak in the chat screen; memory goes up every time you open it.

  2. LeakCanary found a memory leak in the old video player.

Common collocations

  • fix a memory leak
  • find memory leaks
  • retain cycle
  • memory usage
  • crashA sudden failure that makes an app close unexpectedly, usually because of an error in the code that the app could not handle.
  • debugTo find and fix the cause of a bug, for example by running the app step by step, checking logs or stopping the code at a breakpoint.
  • battery drainFaster than normal battery use caused by an app, for example through constant location tracking, frequent network calls or work that keeps running in the background.
  • activityIn Android, a core app component that represents one screen with a user interface and has its own lifecycle, from being created to being destroyed.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Testing, Crashes and Performance

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