Re: gawk memory leak

>Arnold D. Robbins (arnold@mathcs.emory.edu) wrote:
>>: Ob. comp.compilers note. This memory leak stuff has thoroughly
>>: convinced me of the beauty of purify, as much as I otherwise really
>>: dislike software patents. It has also convinced me that automatic
>>: garbage collection a la Java is a Good Thing. :-)


Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com> wrote:
>"...automatic garbage collection a la Java"? As if Java invented gc?


Not at all. The GC in Java is real easy to use: ptr = nil and boom you
don't have to worry about it anymore. I did not mean to imply that GC
in a language means that I no longer have to think about what I'm
doing.


>By the way, I'd be interested in hearing exactly what is patented,
>re: purify.


Purify works by instrumenting object code; they insert new code into
pre-compiled code. This allows them to instrument code from any
compiler, and code that the customer may not have source code for (oh,
like the C library on any commercial Unix system these days). I don't
know the details, but they have a patent on the object code insertion
technique.


I liked the statements that manual memory management requires the
global reasoning, which is a lot harder. This is exactly the kind of
situation I have in gawk. The bug was worse in that the leak was *per
record*. Ouch!


In any case, it's fixed now, and will be available shortly.
--
Arnold Robbins -- guest account at Emory Math/CS
Email: arnold@gnu.ai.mit.edu
--

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