Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!ukma!rutgers!apple!dan
From: dan@Apple.COM (Dan Allen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: Garbage collection in XCMDs
Keywords: Handle
Message-ID: <19782@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 1 Nov 88 03:04:51 GMT
References: <2795@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 16

In article <2795@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU> hsd@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU (Harry S. Delugach) writes:
>I am a beginner at creating XCMDs in LSC 3.0. I am implementing a few
>of my choice Home stack interpreted functions. I am still learning simple
>string manipulation; how to allocate enough space for the return string, etc.
>Each time my XFCN is called, I allocate a new Handle for a return value, 
>which I then fill up with a zero-terminated string. My question is: how does
>that handle ever get disposed of? If I dispose of it before exiting the
>XFCN, that just throws away my return value. Is there a way to mark the
>handle for later purging?

An excellent question indeed.  The good news is that you need not do
anything: HyperTalk automatically disposes of the handle that you pass
back as the function result for XFCNs!

Dan Allen
Software Explorer
Apple Computer