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From: Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Coalescing memory for DOS
Message-ID: <27677be5@ralf>
Date: 13 Dec 90 12:02:29 GMT
Sender: ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science
Lines: 17
In-Reply-To: <90346.130938DLV101@psuvm.psu.edu>

In article <90346.130938DLV101@psuvm.psu.edu>, DLV101@psuvm.psu.edu (Dwaine VanBibber) wrote:
}A while back there was some discussion about DOS's inability to coalesce
}freed memory and several people posted solutions. I have a couple of questions
}regarding this. First, what is "coalescing"? Why is it needed? When is it
}need (ie, when freeing objects from dynamic data structures?)? Lastly, how
}is it done? Examples in C and/or assembly would be appreciated. Thank you.

Coalescing is the process of combining adjacent free blocks into a single,
larger free block.  If you didn't do that, a sequence of allocations and
frees would eventually fragment the memory to the point where even a small
allocation would fail even though there are hundreds of K available--but none
of the free blocks large enough for the request.
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