To add some contexts not in the commit message, I knew that recent versions of Bash consume more memory when the same shell script is loaded. After bisecting, I realized that the increase in memory use was actually caused by a single commit ba4ab055 (see the attached image. The vertical axis is the increase of RSS measured by comparing the results of `ps -o rss "$$"' before and after `source <script>', and the horizontal axis is the sequential number of commit in the devel branch).
In particular, the increase apparently started to happen with the following hunk (on 2011-12-15 according to ChangeLog): > diff --git a/execute_cmd.c b/execute_cmd.c > index e102eee9..adfaa486 100644 > --- a/execute_cmd.c > +++ b/execute_cmd.c > @@ -5251,7 +5251,11 @@ execute_intern_function (name, function) > return (EXECUTION_FAILURE); > } > > - bind_function (name->word, function); > +#if defined (DEBUGGER) > + bind_function_def (name->word, funcdef); > +#endif > + > + bind_function (name->word, funcdef->command); > return (EXECUTION_SUCCESS); > } Related changes in the past: * The `bind_function_def' had saved the function definition from the beginning when it was introduced in commit d3a24ed2 (2011-02-15). At that time, it was called only in the parsing phase. * In the next commit 5e13499c (2011-12-03), it was modified not to save the function body for the first call of `bind_function_def'. * Later, in commit ba4ab055 (2011-12-15), `bind_function_def' was started to be called also in the defining phase (`execute_intern_function' in execute_cmd.c). * In commit 879213c6 (2018-01-03), it was modified so that the function information at the parsing time does not overwrite the existing function information, after the report by Bruno Vasselle: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2017-12/msg00056.html
