Re: IDL Memory Management

[davidf(at)dfanning.com (David Fanning)]

Hi Folks,

I ignored my own good judgement completely earlier
today and wrote this:

> As I understand it, the compiler used for the Windows versions
> of IDL *can* return process memory back to the OS. But it is
> the only one to do so. It is not a feature, apparently, of
> UNIX, Mac, and VMS compilers, which rely on Malloc and Free
> for dynamic memory allocation.

This turns out to be completely boneheaded, as I've now
been informed by people who really know how this works.

Windows is no different from UNIX or Mac or any other
operating system. Dynamic memory allocation is pretty 
much the same on all of them -- malloc. And there is 
just no "general" was to do the memory allocation and
give unused memory back to the OS. 

Sorry to have gotten your hopes up. The good news is that
you can sell all that Microsoft stock you just bought at
a nice premium, probably. :-)

Cheers,

David

-- 
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting
Phone: 970-221-0438 E-Mail: davidf@dfanning.com
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
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