[WebsocketLink] Question - is recreating a channel a memory leak?

[yevyevyev]

Hi, is recreating the channel without disposing the previous one considered a memory leak?

_connectionStateController.add(connecting);
_channel = await _channelGenerator();
_reconnectTimer?.cancel();

[agent3bood]

_channel = await _channelGenerator();

This line will delegate the channel delegation to the user, you have to close the old channel after you are done with it or when regenerating a new one.

[yevyevyev]

So if I need to close the ws connection by myself, then there is a memory leak in WebSocketLink constructor?

WebSocketLink(
    String? uri, {
    ChannelGenerator? channelGenerator,
    this.autoReconnect = true,
    this.reconnectInterval = const Duration(seconds: 10),
    this.serializer = const RequestSerializer(),
    this.parser = const ResponseParser(),
    this.graphQLSocketMessageEncoder = _defaultGraphQLSocketMessageEncoder,
    this.graphQLSocketMessageDecoder = _defaultGraphQLSocketMessageDecoder,
    this.initialPayload,
    this.inactivityTimeout,
  }) : assert((uri == null && channelGenerator != null) ||
            (uri != null && channelGenerator == null)) {
    _channelGenerator =
        channelGenerator ?? () => WebSocketChannel.connect(Uri.parse(uri!));
  }

The default channel generator creates new channel each reconnection.

[agent3bood]

@tapkain This make sense, Thanks for the feedback.

[vysotsky]

@tapkain what do you mean by saying dispose a channel? Are you storing the WebSocketChannel as a property and then calling _channel?.innerWebSocket?.close() on it? Thanks

[yevyevyev]

@vysotsky not sure as well what do you mean :D the channel generator will create each reconnect a new web socket channel, and the previous one won't be disposed. Disposing is closing the sink, eg channel.sink.close() it needs to be done cause if the previous stream will have listeners, those listeners will be subscribed to old stream which was not closed properly. Not a big deal but can cause troubles in some cases.