From: ncohen@watson.ibm.com (Norman H. Cohen)
Subject: Re: Does memory leak?
Date: 24 Mar 1995 21:08:27 GMT
Date: 1995-03-24T21:08:27+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <3kvccb$18ru@watnews1.watson.ibm.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: EACHUS.95Mar22193719@spectre.mitre.org
In article <EACHUS.95Mar22193719@spectre.mitre.org>,
eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) writes:
|> There are a very few cases where programs are deliberately
|> designed to leak storage because it is too expensive to avoid it, but
|> these are very rare. (One case that I had something to do with
|> involves a command line parameter package...it may be possible to
|> determine when the storage required goes away, but in most cases you
|> would be saving less in stack or heap space than you lose to added
|> code space.)
A few drops of water drip from my shower head after I shut off the water,
but as long as the number of drops is bounded by a constant, I don't call
that a leak.
It sounds as if the case you are talking about involves a bounded amount
of storage allocated ONCE at the beginning of the program. As long as it
does not cause memory to gradually become exhausted as execution
continues, I don't call that a leak either.
The only programs I know of with deliberate memory leaks are those whose
executions are short enough, and whose target machines have enough
virtual memory space, that running out of memory is not a concern.
(This class of programs includes many student programming exercises and
some simple applets and utilities; it includes few if any embedded or
safety-critical programs.)
--
Norman H. Cohen ncohen@watson.ibm.com
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1995-03-24 21:08 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 34+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1995-03-22 9:06 Does memory leak? Duncan Sands
1995-03-22 12:04 ` Fred J. McCall
1995-03-23 0:37 ` Robert I. Eachus
1995-03-23 13:54 ` Arthur Evans Jr
1995-03-23 16:23 ` Robert I. Eachus
1995-03-24 21:08 ` Norman H. Cohen [this message]
1995-03-28 0:00 ` Theodore Dennison
1995-03-31 0:00 ` Kent Mitchell
1995-03-23 2:08 ` T. Owen O'Malley
1995-03-24 11:44 ` Robert Dewar
1995-03-27 14:01 ` Theodore Dennison
1995-03-29 0:00 ` John DiCamillo
1995-03-30 0:00 ` Theodore Dennison
1995-03-30 0:00 ` Robb Nebbe
1995-03-30 0:00 ` Henry Baker
1995-04-04 0:00 ` John Baker
1995-04-05 0:00 ` Ray Toal
1995-04-05 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1995-04-06 0:00 ` Norman H. Cohen
1995-04-07 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1995-04-05 0:00 ` Pat Rogers
1995-04-05 0:00 ` Sverre Brubaek
1995-03-30 0:00 ` Robert I. Eachus
1995-03-23 22:38 ` Tucker Taft
1995-03-24 1:57 ` Henry Baker
1995-03-24 17:30 ` Larry Kilgallen, LJK Software
1995-03-26 0:00 ` Henry Baker
1995-03-27 15:19 ` Norman H. Cohen
1995-03-27 14:35 ` Kennel
1995-03-24 12:29 ` Mike Meier
1995-03-24 10:46 ` Fred J. McCall
1995-03-24 15:44 ` David Weller
1995-03-25 1:55 ` kkrieser
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
1995-03-27 9:36 Duncan Sands
replies disabled
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox