Resource Leak

Definitions

1. A defect in which a program acquires a system resource — file descriptor, database connection, socket, memory allocation, thread — but fails to release it, causing gradual exhaustion of that resource until the system degrades or crashes. Unlike memory leaks, resource leaks can hit OS-level limits (ulimit, max connections) far before memory pressure becomes an issue.

   In plain English: When a program keeps grabbing system resources like file handles or connections but never gives them back, eventually running the system out of them.

   Example: "We hit the file descriptor limit after 48 hours — a resource leak in the HTTP client was opening connections and never closing them."

Related Terms

• Garbage Collection
• Observability
• Leak Detection
• Low-Level Programming
• Memory Management
• Memory Profile
• Memory Zeroing
• Raw Pointer
• Signed Integer
• Stack Allocation
• Stepper