Providing distributed array containers for programming objects

A computer program product comprising one or more hardware storage devices having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system, cause the computing system manage memory on worker processes of a distributed software application, including the following:

• determining that a distributed software function has finished processing, the distributed software function including one or more shim objects instantiated on a master rank and one or more worker ranks of the distributed application, the shim objects being configured to store a reference to a local object instance of a distributed array object, the reference including a unique identifier for the distributed array object;
• upon determining that the distributed software application has finished processing, allowing the shim objects instantiated on the worker ranks to go out of scope;
• and
• retaining the distributed object reference to prevent garbage collection from recovering local data storage associated with the distributed software function.

A computer system comprising the following:

• one or more hardware processors;
• system memory;
• one or more computer-readable storage media having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the computing system to perform a method for managing memory on worker processes of a distributed software application, the method comprising the following:
• determining that a distributed software function has finished processing, the distributed software function including one or more shim objects instantiated on a master rank and one or more worker ranks of the distributed application, the shim objects being configured to store a reference to a local object instance of a distributed array object, the reference including a unique identifier for the distributed array object;
• upon determining that the distributed software application has finished processing, allowing the shim objects instantiated on the worker ranks to go out of scope;
• and
• retaining the distributed object reference to prevent garbage collection from recovering local data storage associated with the distributed software function.