Re: Flat Short of MEMORY_BLOCK

> Eric Bezault wrote:
> The restriction is that we don't want to force people to have
> a C compiler in order to use Gobo

Is inline c acceptable?

> ... ISE's MANAGED_POINTER already provides some basic stuff ...
> MEMORY_CELL would probably do the trick for VE although I
> didn't look for a way to allocate memory from Eiffel in VE.
> What about SE? I guess NATIVE_ARRAY can play the same kind
> of trick as VE's MEMORY_CELL thanks to NATIVE_ARRAY.from_pointer
> although I never understood how SE's GC handles the pointer
> held in NATIVE_ARRAY (e.g. when it's owned or not).

I didn't find a class MEMORY_CELL in VE, maybe Alexander was 
proposing this class as an implementation. Here is a synopsis for 
allocating and freeing memory in the three compilers:

--- VE 
from class RTS_SERVER
allocate_memory (size: INTEGER): POINTER
release_memory (p: POINTER)

--- ISE
from class POINTER_REF
memory_alloc (a_size: INTEGER): POINTER
memory_free

--- SE
from expanded class NATIVE_ARRAY
calloc(nb_elements: INTEGER): like Current
As Eric said I don't know how SE handles freeing the memory.

I assume calling these features produces a pointer that is safe to 
pass to external routines (e.g. immobile).

Next as a minimum we need to poke and peek an 8-bit integer to a 
memory location. All other features can be implemented in terms of 
these two:

--- VE
from class MEMORY
mem_copy (dest, source : POINTER; bytes_number : INTEGER)

--- SE
from class NATIVE_ARRAY
put(element: E; index: INTEGER)

--- ISE
from class POINTER_REF
memory_copy (a_source: POINTER; a_size: INTEGER)
This is how ISE's MANAGED_POINTER implements it.

Next up...I'd like to summarise the various implementations of this 
data type from ePosix, ISE, ECLI, Fenestra, and EWG_MANAGED_POINTER.

Brian



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark
Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada.
http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/saFolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To Post a message, send it to:   [email protected]
To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [email protected] 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gobo-eiffel/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     [email protected]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/