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$KILL

Deletes variables.

Synopsis

$KILL variable[, ...]

Arguments

variable The variable(s) to be deleted by the $KILL command. variable can be a single variable name or a comma-separated list of variable names.

Description

The $KILL statement deletes the specified variable or comma-separated list of variables. The variables can be local variables, process-private variables, or globals. They do not have to be actual defined variables, but they must be valid variable names. You cannot kill a special variable, even if its value is user-specified. Attempting to do so generates a <SYNTAX> error.

The ASSIGNED function returns 0 if a variable is unassigned or has been deleted.

Using $KILL to delete variables frees up local variable storage space. To determine or set the maximum local variable storage space (in kilobytes), use the ObjectScript $ZSTORAGE special variable. To determine the currently available local variable storage space (in bytes), use the $STORAGE special variable.

Examples

In the following example, $KILL deletes local variables a, b, and d. The PRINT returns 3 and 5.

a=1
b=2
c=3
d=4
e=5
$KILL a,b,d
PRINT a,b,c,d,e

In the following example, $KILL deletes the process-private global ^||ppglob and all of its subscripts. No other variables are affected.

^||ppglob(1)="fruit"
^||ppglob(1,1)="apples"
^||ppglob(1,2)="oranges"
$KILL ^||ppglob
PRINT ^||ppglob(1),^||ppglob(1,1)

Notes

$KILL and Objects

Object variables (OREFs) automatically maintain a reference count — the number of items currently referring to an object. Whenever you set a variable or object property to refer to an object, Caché increments the object’s reference count. When you $KILL a variable, Caché decrements the corresponding object reference count. When this reference count goes to 0, the object is automatically destroyed; that is, Caché removes it from memory. The object reference count is also decremented when a variable is set to a new value, or when the variable goes out of scope.

In the case of a persistent object, call the %Save() method before removing the object from memory if you wish to preserve changes to the object. The %Delete() method deletes the stored version of a Caché object; it does not remove the in-memory version of that object.

Using $KILL with Arrays

You can use $KILL to delete an entire array or a selected node within an array. The specified array can be a local variable, a process-private global, or a global variable. For further details on global variables with subscripted nodes, see Global Structure in Using Caché Globals.

To delete a global array and all of its subordinate nodes, simply supply the global name to $KILL.

To delete an array node, supply the appropriate subscript. For example, the following $KILL command deletes the node at subscript 1,2. This example uses the ASSIGNED function to return a boolean value indicating whether the variable has been deleted:

^fruitbasket(1)="fruit"
^fruitbasket(1,1)="apples"
^fruitbasket(1,2)="oranges"
^fruitbasket(1,2,1)="navel"
^fruitbasket(1,2,2)="mandarin"
PRINT ^fruitbasket(1)," contains ",^fruitbasket(1,1),
         " and ",^fruitbasket(1,2)
PRINT ^fruitbasket(1,2)," contains ",^fruitbasket(1,2,1),
         " and ",^fruitbasket(1,2,2)
$KILL ^fruitbasket(1,2)
PRINT "1st level node: ",ASSIGNED(^fruitbasket(1))
PRINT "2nd level node: ",ASSIGNED(^fruitbasket(1,1))
PRINT "Deleted 2nd level node: ",ASSIGNED(^fruitbasket(1,2))
PRINT "3rd level node under deleted 2nd: ",ASSIGNED(^fruitbasket(1,2,1))

When you delete an array node, you automatically delete all nodes subordinate to that node and any immediately preceding node that contains only a pointer to the deleted node. If a deleted node is the only node in its array, the array itself is deleted along with the node.

See Also

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