From:	Hans-Bernhard Broeker <broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: Memory question
Date:	22 Aug 2000 13:28:14 GMT
Organization:	Aachen University of Technology (RWTH)
Lines:	19
Message-ID:	<8ntv5e$odb$1@nets3.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE>
References:	<8ns0va$qv4$1 AT info DOT cyf-kr DOT edu DOT pl>
NNTP-Posting-Host:	acp3bf.physik.rwth-aachen.de
Mime-Version:	1.0
X-Trace:	nets3.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE 966950894 25003 137.226.32.75 (22 Aug 2000 13:28:14 GMT)
X-Complaints-To:	abuse AT rwth-aachen DOT de
NNTP-Posting-Date:	22 Aug 2000 13:28:14 GMT
Originator:	broeker@
To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway:	from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Reply-To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com

"Rafał Maj" <r_maj AT poczta DOT onet DOT pl> wrote:
> Hi,
> I just wanted to know, if unloading & re-loading all data from memory will
> cause something like memory defragmentation ? 

Not generally, and not reliably. Memory fragmentation can only be
avoided by applying your own, hand-made stragety, where *you* do the
bookkeeping of what size of blocks has been used. You can't generally
know such details of what happens inside malloc() and free().

OTOH, We're in 32bit paged protected memory, so memory fragmentation
is far less of a problem than it would be in, say, 16bit realmode.
You'll have to lose quite a lot of heap to fragmentation before it
actually becomes a problem.


-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.

- Raw text -