# How much memory does a reference take up?

**URL:** https://forum.kirupa.com/t/how-much-memory-does-a-reference-take-up/322292
**Category:** flash
**Created:** [May 17, 2011, 10:29am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/how-much-memory-does-a-reference-take-up/322292 "2011-05-17T10:29:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![IQAndreas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f08c70/32.png) [@IQAndreas](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/IQAndreas)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2011, 10:29am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/how-much-memory-does-a-reference-take-up/322292/1 "2011-05-17T10:29:57Z")

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If you ignore all the extra memory overhead involved in storing variables (such as keeping track of property names etc)…

How many bytes does Flash use to store a single reference to a “complex object”?

And a related question (to avoid creating two threads):  
How many bytes does a String take up?  
[size=1]_I’m guessing one byte per character, plus an extra byte for the “end of string” character?_[/size]