[Trigger] Set units still set when dead?

[Sunchips]

If I set a unit to a variable and the unit dies, will the unit still be saved in the variable until cleared?

For example I set unit X as TheUnit. TheUnit dies and 5 minutes later in the game I have a trigger that uses TheUnit's unit type as a reference, will the information for it still be available? Or upon TheUnit's death do I need to declare this information and save it for later use manually?

 

[chasin225]

it is still available, howover i have never tested for how long after death

 

[Sunchips]

Thanks for the reply. This makes me wonder how long a dead unit is stored in the game. I wonder if it ever gets removed and if not; dead unremoved units cause leaks and need to be manually removed after a while?

 

[Wietlol]

When a unit dies it either is instantly removed (after death animation ofc) or it will make a corpse.
The corpse has a timer and when it expires, the corpse (aka the original unit) is removed from the game. All references to that unit have a null value after that.

 

[Sunchips]

Thanks that information is very helpful

 

[deathismyfriend]

As said above by Wietlol they units do get removed and variables then reference nothing / null. But the unit always leaks because of a problem in the way WC3 was coded. Each unit leaks a small amount 4kb I believe.

 

[Dr Super Good]

The unit's handle will not be recycled until you re-assign all variables referencing it. This is because a removed unit does not null all referencing variables, instead it invalidates the handle so that it references nothing. The handle can only be safely recycled once all references to it have been re-assigned. The game does this by giving each handle a reference counter and incrementing/decrementing it on assignment/reassignment.

It is important to note that a serious bug with handles declared by the keyword "local" can cause permanent reference leaks. When the function returns it does not decrement the handle reference counter so prevents the handle from ever being recycled. The solution is to manually null the local before function return so that the reference counter is correctly decremented. This does not affect local handles declared as arguments.

Several BJs used by GUI suffer from this. Most notable is "PolledWait" or "Wait game time" which leaks a handle used for it's timer.