Path: utzoo!lsuc!ncrcan!brambo!sid
From: sid@brambo.UUCP (Sid Van den Heede)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: RAM disks (was: small assesment of some formaters)
Keywords: format, review
Message-ID: <309@brambo.UUCP>
Date: 4 Mar 88 04:15:47 GMT
References: <439@dukempd.UUCP> <1418@water.waterloo.edu> <3335@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: sid@brambo.UUCP (Sid Van den Heede)
Organization: Bramalea Software Inc., Bramalea, Ont.
Lines: 49

In article <3335@watcgl.waterloo.edu> jafischer@lily.waterloo.edu (Jonathan A. Fischer) writes:
>	o  The main problem is with the Malloc() system routine.  Its bugs
>	   are notorious, but in short, there is a fixed limit on the number
>	   of Malloc's any one application can perform.  In fact, I once
>	   caught a message on Compuserve claiming that even if you're just
>	   doing something like:
>	   	while (1) {
>	   		buf = Malloc(size);
>	   		Mfree(buf);
>	   	}
>	   then it _still_ stops giving you memory after a while.  (I'd like
>	   someone to confirm this).

The following program succeeds on my system.  I'm using MWC version 2.0
and the Nov 20 1985 version of the TOS ROMs.  The program stops after 
10,000 repititions.  When the address returned by Malloc was displayed,
it was always the same.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <osbind.h>

main()
{
long buf;
long count = 0;

printf ("%ld bytes memory available.\n", Malloc(-1L));

	while (1) {
		if ((buf = Malloc(1000L)) < 0L) {
			printf ("Malloc stopped giving memory after %ld calls.\n", count);
			break;
			}
		if (++count > 10000L) {
			printf ("Malloc ok after 10000 tries.\n");
			break;
			}
		if (Mfree(buf) < 0L) {
			printf ("Mfree failed after %ld tries.\n", count);
			break;
			}
		}
	
	}
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