Note: this page shall document facts about the circumstances where Tcl and Tk process garbage collection.
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[RJM] asks if anybody can describe details about garbage collection process invocations. Currently, I assume that Tcl does automatic memory management when nothing is done. In conjunction with the Tk event loop: This would happen when the idle state is present/reached.
I also assume that Tcl and Tk have their own collectors, since both subsystems have their own data structures (I mean, Tk has hidden window related data which can be accessed by Tcl via ''config'' subcommands etc.). Of course Tk objects may normally be destroyed explicitly, hence making automatic memory freeing unnecessary, but I experienced that e.g. coordinate lists of complex line objects may well be subject to automatic memory management.

Further, I believe that events (i.e. events that are hardware interrupts) may well delay or interrupt (or even cancel) any running garbage collection. A practical code example showing that animation speed in widgets may well depend on (timed) event sources in relationship with animations involving changes in data structures makes this assumption viable: [event/response delay investigation] (no contents yet). 

[DKF]: Actually no.  Tcl and Tk manage memory eagerly, releasing it as soon as the reference to it vanishes.

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