Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!stevec
From: stevec@Apple.COM (Steve Christensen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: "Out of memory"
Message-ID: <10287@goofy.Apple.COM>
Date: 18 Sep 90 21:14:40 GMT
References: <120394@linus.mitre.org>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 25

In article <120394@linus.mitre.org> laf@mbunix.mitre.org (Lee Fyock) writes:
>What causes the multifinder message "The application XXX
>unexpectedly quit (out of memory)"?  I would think that a
>memory request (NewPtr or NewHandle) would cause it, but
>shouldn't they just return null, with the appropriate MemErr?

This should only happen if somewhere within the OS or ToolBox there's a
request for memory (which it can't get), and it can't back out gracefully.
I can't remember if this could happen when a new segment needs to be loaded
(or if that would return a segment loader error), but that's the kind of case
where it could happen.  In that case, one routine tries to call another
routine in another segment, the segment can't be loaded, and the app can't
go anywhere from there so it dies.

If the app itself calls NewPtr or NewHandle, it would check for a nil pointer
or handle, or MemErr, so it wouldn't suffer this kind of death.

steve
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