RE: ALLOC Question

[Jim Langston <jlangston@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

How are you supposed to know the maximum size you need, Barbara?  The main
reason people (or I anyway) use Malloc in the first place is cause they have
no idea how much memory they are going to need.

Regards,

Jim Langston

-----Original Message-----
From: bmorris@ca.ibm.com [mailto:bmorris@ca.ibm.com]

>From: MWalter@hanoverwire.com
>Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 10:44:55 -0400
>
>My question is regarding dynamically allocating storage. Say you have an
>array defined as based and dimensioned with 1000 elements. Can you
allocate
>more than the 1000 elements or is that the limit?

Mark, you can allocate as much as you want (within the system's limits).
ALLOC doesn't know or care what you're going to use the pointer for.

But you can only get to the first 1000 elements using RPG's array(x)
syntax.  If you wanted to get to the next 1000 elements, you'd have to
move the pointer.  (If you do this, make sure you save the original pointer
so you can deallocate the storage.)

But why would you want to allocate more than you define?  Why not just
define it with the maximum size you need?

Barbara Morris