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From: krulwich@ils.nwu.edu (Bruce Krulwich)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs,gnu.emacs
Subject: GNU EMACS: non-buffer memory usage
Message-ID: <1537@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu>
Date: 29 Aug 90 18:25:01 GMT
Sender: news@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu
Reply-To: krulwich@ils.nwu.edu (Bruce Krulwich)
Organization: Institute for the Learning Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60201
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Hi.

I've been toying with an EMACS-LISP package to maintain simple records of
information (phone lists, grades, etc).  Ignoring all the issues of user
interface, I'm concerned about GNU EMACS's ability to react well to
reasonably large amounts of information stored in CONS-cells and strings as
opposed to editor buffers.  (I'm sure there are those who'd say I should be
using a buffer instead of lists, but lists seem better for the functions I
want.)  My question is:

Is the EMACS-LISP heap from which CONS cells and strings are given memory
handled differently than the memory in which editor buffers are stored, and
is the former worse for storing information than the latter?

I ask this because I can imagine GNU EMACS written such that the regular
heap (for CONS cells and strings) is memory-resident but the buffers have a
scheme of storing in temporary files when not active.  In this case storing
non-trivial amounts of information in the heap will have a detrimental
effect on the whole system, while storing information in buffers would not.

Thanks for any info anyone can give me.


Bruce Krulwich
krulwich@ils.nwu.edu
Institute for the Learning Sciences