At 09:14 AM 8/21/01 -0500, [log in to unmask] wrote:

>compaction/coalescing, whatever....
>
>
>Back in the 1990s, I used a compiler that did not
>
>defragment its internal free list.  It's algorithm
>
>for managing memory ensured that no matter how well
>
>the application ensured things were deallocated, the
>
>free list would get longer and longer and more and
>
>more fragmented, and allocations would get slower
>
>and slower until there was no memeory left.
>
>
>
>When we complained to the vendor, they sent us a
>
>package containing nothing but two pragmas.  By
>
>withing that package into our main program, we
>
>caused the linker to use malloc and free instead
>
>of the vendor's run-time manager.
>
>
>
>Result: thread-safe, efficient, reliable, RM-compliant
>
>memory management!  So why on earth did they do what
>
>they did in the first place?


Good question.  An interesting example of "simplistic"?  But then, one
would need some statistics  on data element size requirements/trends over
time to know for sure HOW simplistic.

sro


S. Ron Oliver, semi-retired professor of Computer Science and Computer
Engineering.  www.csc.calpoly.edu/~sroliver

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