[Bf-committers] Some words about a strange thing named

[Jonathan Merritt]

This is a valid point, but the more important question is:

    "So, we check for NULL, and then do... ?   What, exactly?"

IMHO, a NULL return should typically be handled at a high level by the 
malloc() wrapper.  I mean, what can Blender *do* if it can't access any 
more memory?  Some suggestions:
    1. Empty caches, and then try again.
    2. Give up, try to save and quit (storing a "run out of memory" flag 
in the memory manager to prevent recursion).
    3. (...)?
These things should surely be implemented in a high-level memory 
manager, not peppered throughout the code in every function that 
allocates memory.  Does anyone disagree?

Jonathan Merritt.


Jorrit Tyberghein wrote:

>Hmm... Exactly how is a system that is returning null for malloc a
>f*cked up system? On my linux system I have 512Megs RAM and 1Gig swap
>(not an uncommon setup). Assume that I still have 300Megs free (which
>is plenty) and then something does a malloc of 300 megs which fails.
>How is this a f*cked up system? Code should check for failure on
>memory allocation IMHO. Now in practice I realize that few programs
>actually do that (Crystal Space doesn't do that either) but returning
>NULL for malloc is not always indicative of your system being messed
>up. It can simply be that there is not sufficient memory available for
>the allocation.
>
>Greetings,
>  
>