leaktest.rb

#! /usr/bin/ruby
#
# memory leak?
#
require 'nokogiri'

1000.times do
  doc = Nokogiri::XML("<root><item>1</item></root>")
  doc.at('item').remove
  putc "."
end
puts

valgrind-no-node-remove.log

# valgrind output WITHOUT the Node#remove call
==30011== 
==30011== ERROR SUMMARY: 0 errors from 0 contexts (suppressed: 0 from 0)
==30011== malloc/free: in use at exit: 937,398 bytes in 15,263 blocks.
==30011== malloc/free: 47,333 allocs, 32,070 frees, 14,197,941 bytes allocated.
==30011== For counts of detected errors, rerun with: -v
==30011== searching for pointers to 15,263 not-freed blocks.
==30011== checked 1,344,580 bytes.
==30011== 
==30011== LEAK SUMMARY:
==30011==    definitely lost: 0 bytes in 0 blocks.
==30011==      possibly lost: 12 bytes in 1 blocks.
==30011==    still reachable: 937,386 bytes in 15,262 blocks.
==30011==         suppressed: 0 bytes in 0 blocks.
==30011== Rerun with --leak-check=full to see details of leaked memory.

valgrind-node-remove.log

# valgrind output WITH the Node#remove call
==29997== 
==29997== ERROR SUMMARY: 0 errors from 0 contexts (suppressed: 0 from 0)
==29997== malloc/free: in use at exit: 1,092,853 bytes in 19,096 blocks.
==29997== malloc/free: 147,428 allocs, 128,332 frees, 29,814,993 bytes allocated.
==29997== For counts of detected errors, rerun with: -v
==29997== searching for pointers to 19,096 not-freed blocks.
==29997== checked 1,432,704 bytes.
==29997== 
==29997== LEAK SUMMARY:
==29997==    definitely lost: 67,800 bytes in 1,130 blocks.
==29997==      possibly lost: 12 bytes in 1 blocks.
==29997==    still reachable: 1,025,041 bytes in 17,965 blocks.
==29997==         suppressed: 0 bytes in 0 blocks.
==29997== Rerun with --leak-check=full to see details of leaked memory.