Article View: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Article #3921Re: Coalescing memory for DOS
From: Ralf.Brown
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 1990 12:02
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 1990 12:02
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In article <90346.130938DLV101@psuvm.psu.edu>, DLV101@psuvm.psu.edu (Dwaine VanBibber) wrote:
}A while back there was some discussion about DOS's inability to coalesce
}freed memory and several people posted solutions. I have a couple of questions
}regarding this. First, what is "coalescing"? Why is it needed? When is it
}need (ie, when freeing objects from dynamic data structures?)? Lastly, how
}is it done? Examples in C and/or assembly would be appreciated. Thank you.
Coalescing is the process of combining adjacent free blocks into a single,
larger free block. If you didn't do that, a sequence of allocations and
frees would eventually fragment the memory to the point where even a small
allocation would fail even though there are hundreds of K available--but none
of the free blocks large enough for the request.
--
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!udel!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!b.gp.cs.cmu.edu!Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU From: Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer Subject: Re: Coalescing memory for DOS Message-ID: <27677be5@ralf> Date: 13 Dec 90 12:02:29 GMT Sender: ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu Organization: Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science Lines: 17 In-Reply-To: <90346.130938DLV101@psuvm.psu.edu>