Re: Reason for allocating memory

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Jon Paris wrote:
> Absolutely - I would always use dynamic memory when I didn't know how large
> something (like an array) might become.  But it is an unusual situation.  If
> I want a fixed length field of 256 - I specify it.  The point I was making
> was that the programmer in question didn't know RPG - not that dynamic
> memory was a bad thing - just that it was a bad _RPG_ example.

I've argued this point before.

If you're likely to have a relatively small amount of dynamic data,
I'd just stick with a static array, instead of dynamically
allocating storage based on the actual number of elements.  Note
that if you dynamically allocate and reallocate storage as your
number of elements changes during processing, you're incurring a
fairly heavy overhead for that processing.

On the other hand, if you have a large amount of dynamic data,
you're probably better off using a database file.

Either way, you end up not having to deal with those nasty pointers,
the "goto" of data structures.

Cheers!  Hans