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From: Jim.Spencer@p510.f22.n282.z1.mn.org (Jim Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: fragmentation of free store
Message-ID: <671068804.8@mmug.edgar.mn.org>
Date: 6 Apr 91 07:08:31 GMT
Sender: UUCP@p0.f22.n282.z1.mn.org
Lines: 15


Larry Smith writes in a message to All

LS> There are lots of other things you can do with this type of scheme, 
LS> but I won't go into them now. Sadly, few compilers use this mechanism 
LS> to implement pointers. C, C++, Pascal, etc all implement pointers 
LS> as bare addresses. Of course, you can implement the above scheme 
LS> yourself in C, etc, but then you'll have to dereference twice 
LS> whereever the pointer is used. This is why you'll always see 
LS> things like "WindowRecord^^.HorizSize" in Macintosh Pascal code 
LS> - the Mac's menu manager does this, but the compiler is unaware 
LS> of it. Result: ugly code. 

This isn't completely true.  Object Pascal as it has been implemented on the Mac returns handles to objects.  The methods for these objects can be called without dereferencing the handle.  MPW C++ similarly has, in order to be able to use MacApp, a handle based object.