http://www.elsop.com/wrc/humor/unixhoax.htm On 7/28/10, Bill Gallik <BillGallik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Joseph writes: > "memory management is just a practice you might need to do since we don't > want a program eating more and more memory when it shouldn't (I guarantee > you'll be fighting with your computer about that dispute later...)." > > Ah YES, memory management and the pitfalls therein. There lies one of the > main bullets that get copied at least 10 times, allocated memory not being > freed after no longer needed. But truthfully, pointers and memory > management is not the ogres purported to be. Here's the deal: > > Pointers - a pointer is an address in memory that stores the address of a > bit of memory. What tends to be confusing is that (in C/C++ anyways) you > can have a pointer to a short, long, char, float, double and various types > of arrays. What makes this confusing is that, although the memory addressed > in a pointer might be any of those specific types - the pointer address > itself is always a long integer because it identifies the address where the > desired memory begins. > > memory management - basically this is the science/art of making sure that > when additional memory is allocated that the programmer take care to be sure > to free up that memory after it is no longer needed. If this isn't done, > the program (the data section actually) may grow and grow and grow. So > what's wrong with this? Well, even on the largest computers memory does have > a finite limit; if the program continues to grab memory there's a host of > undesirable consequences. > ---- > Holland's Person, Bill > E-Mail: BillGallik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx > - The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese! > > __________ > View the list's information and change your settings at > //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind > > -- Change the world--1 deed at a time Jackie McBride Scripting Classes: http://jawsscripting.lonsdalemedia.org homePage: www.abletec.serverheaven.net For technophobes: www.technophoeb.com __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind