When working with COM objects, especially Automation objects, it can be very easy to instantiate many object instances (for example, when searching many objects in a collection). This accumulation of COM objects can impose a burden on system resources. To alleviate this burden, ABL provides the RELEASE OBJECT statement. This statement releases the COM object associated with the specified component handle, making it available for garbage collection if no other COM object has a reference to it. In general, it is good practice to release any COM handles that you no longer need for your application. It is only necessary to release COM objects that have been assigned to a component-handle variable.