Can you explain what a memory leak in software means?

Memory leak is a situation where a program continues to occupy memory that is no longer needed but does not release it. As a result, available memory decreases, which can lead to performance degradation or crashes.

For example, in a Java application, objects that are no longer used are created, but references to them are kept in collections or static variables, preventing the garbage collector from deleting them.

In systems with manual memory management (e.g., C/C++), a leak occurs when allocated memory is not freed after use.

To prevent leaks, it is important to monitor the lifecycle of objects and release resources when they are no longer needed.