How has support for memory leaks and circular refs (weak refs) changed across recent Perl versions?

memory leaks, circular references, weak references, Perl, Perl versions, memory management
Exploring the evolution of memory leak management and circular reference support in Perl versions, focusing on the introduction and improvement of weak references for better memory management.
# Example of using weak references in Perl use Scalar::Util 'weaken'; { my $object1 = {}; my $object2 = {}; $object1->{ref} = $object2; $object2->{ref} = $object1; # Creating a weak reference to object2 weaken($object1->{ref}); # Circular reference handling: without weaken, both objects would persist print "Object1 is still alive\n" if defined $object1->{ref}; undef $object2; # Now object2 is freed even if object1 holds a reference print "Object1 is dead now\n" if not defined $object1->{ref}; }

memory leaks circular references weak references Perl Perl versions memory management