lib/PublicInbox/HlMod.pm   | 33 +++++++++++++--------------------
 lib/PublicInbox/ViewVCS.pm |  5 -----
 t/hl_mod.t                 | 15 ---------------

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/HlMod.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/HlMod.pm
index 284e4b1896d46db23fe73613849604448f9c49ec..13f27d19cb40b85e8d5bbc33a22525c31576a551 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/HlMod.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/HlMod.pm
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ package PublicInbox::HlMod;
 use strict;
 use warnings;
 use highlight; # SWIG-generated stuff
+my $hl;
 
 sub _parse_filetypes ($) {
 	my $ft_conf = $_[0]->searchFile('filetypes.conf') or
@@ -52,16 +53,20 @@ 	}
 	(\%ext2lang, \@shebang);
 }
 
+# We only need one instance, so we don't need to do
+# highlight::CodeGenerator::deleteInstance
 sub new {
 	my ($class) = @_;
-	my $dir = highlight::DataDir->new;
-	$dir->initSearchDirectories('');
-	my ($ext2lang, $shebang) = _parse_filetypes($dir);
-	bless {
-		-dir => $dir,
-		-ext2lang => $ext2lang,
-		-shebang => $shebang,
-	}, $class;
+	$hl ||= do {
+		my $dir = highlight::DataDir->new;
+		$dir->initSearchDirectories('');
+		my ($ext2lang, $shebang) = _parse_filetypes($dir);
+		bless {
+			-dir => $dir,
+			-ext2lang => $ext2lang,
+			-shebang => $shebang,
+		}, $class;
+	};
 }
 
 sub _shebang2lang ($$) {
@@ -118,18 +123,6 @@ 	# know that, so ensure it's marked as UTF-8 even if it isnt...
 	my $out = $gen->generateString($$str);
 	utf8::decode($out);
 	\$out;
-}
-
-# SWIG instances aren't reference-counted, but $self is;
-# so we need to delete all the CodeGenerator instances manually
-# at our own destruction
-sub DESTROY {
-	my ($self) = @_;
-	foreach my $gen (values %$self) {
-		if (ref($gen) eq 'highlight::CodeGenerator') {
-			highlight::CodeGenerator::deleteInstance($gen);
-		}
-	}
 }
 
 1;
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/ViewVCS.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/ViewVCS.pm
index acdd822dc4274099e2b362ecd0512aa43759e69a..0fb6b64e49e8b8d2e9068981c864537a63334830 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/ViewVCS.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/ViewVCS.pm
@@ -25,11 +25,6 @@ 	require PublicInbox::HlMod;
 	PublicInbox::HlMod->new;
 };
 
-# we need to trigger highlight::CodeGenerator::deleteInstance
-# in HlMod::DESTROY before the rest of Perl shuts down to avoid
-# a segfault at shutdown
-END { $hl = undef };
-
 my %QP_MAP = ( A => 'oid_a', B => 'oid_b', a => 'path_a', b => 'path_b' );
 my $max_size = 1024 * 1024; # TODO: configurable
 my $BIN_DETECT = 8000; # same as git
diff --git a/t/hl_mod.t b/t/hl_mod.t
index 238f8ec55b5c23a18ae7a82e9c008fe22ec7f06a..f2eb5f918765729b2d496402fbf0ef2ed1e3218a 100644
--- a/t/hl_mod.t
+++ b/t/hl_mod.t
@@ -40,19 +40,4 @@ 		is($out, $orig, 'w3m output matches');
 	}
 }
 
-my $nr = $ENV{TEST_MEMLEAK};
-if ($nr && -r "/proc/$$/status") {
-	my $fh;
-	open $fh, '<', "/proc/$$/status";
-	diag "starting at memtest at ".join('', grep(/VmRSS:/, <$fh>));
-	PublicInbox::HlMod->new->do_hl(\$orig) for (1..$nr);
-	open $fh, '<', "/proc/$$/status";
-	diag "creating $nr instances: ".join('', grep(/VmRSS:/, <$fh>));
-	my $hls = PublicInbox::HlMod->new;
-	$hls->do_hl(\$orig) for (1..$nr);
-	$hls = undef;
-	open $fh, '<', "/proc/$$/status";
-	diag "reused instance $nr times: ".join('', grep(/VmRSS:/, <$fh>));
-}
-
 done_testing;