Add an option to expose global.gc().

[bolinfest]

Node accepts the --expose-gc flag to make global.gc() available. I am trying to write some tests using WeakMap to see if I have memory leaks, so having access to global.gc() would be really useful.

Is there any way to enable this today and/or how hard would it be to add?

[deepak1556]

v8 related flags can be enabled by https://github.com/atom/atom-shell/blob/master/spec/static/main.js#L9 but it actually didnt expose gc() . is it because v8 was already initialised by gin in libchromium, @zcbenz thoughts ?

[zcbenz]

@deepak1556 That code is in the specs window.

@bolinfest You can use the line referenced by @deepak1556 to expose gc.

[bradisbell]

Could someone please elaborate on how to actually expose global.gc() in Electron? The link above doesn't seem to reference anything useful anymore.

[danburzo]

@bradisbell you need to run Electron with --js-flags="--expose-gc" to enable the global.gc() method. I've made a pull request to clarify the docs for command-line switches.

[cbroad]

This is only about 5 years late, but for posterity the following can be done without any command line args. The "--expose-gc" command line argument is implied in the first command.

require("v8").setFlagsFromString("--expose_gc");
global.gc = require("vm").runInNewContext("gc");