gnupic: Re: [gnupic] gpasm memory leaks
Subject:
Re: [gnupic] gpasm memory leaks
From:
"David Barnett" ####@####.####
Date:
4 Jun 2007 22:57:04 +0100
Message-Id: <021a01c7a6f2$96805e00$0301a8c0@barnett2>
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Dattalo" ####@####.####
To: ####@####.####
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 3:28 PM
Subject: Re: [gnupic] gpasm memory leaks
> David,
>
> I was going to question the value of your investigation too when I
> realized
> that the real value is in the knowledge you'll gain in understanding
> gpasm.
Now I think about it, some of the changes required for the fixes were
drastic enough they could cause other bugs, and my whole aim was to work on
something minor for one final release before we/I make some of the drastic
changes we've already discussed. I did learn some things in the process, so
it's not too big a step backwards to forget it and change directions,
although I would still recommend applying the first patch since it's
straightforward. I think at this point, if the memory leak fixes aren't
really a step forward, I could change directions and learn just as much
tracking down other bugs.
BTW, several of the bugs in the tracker seem to have already been fixed. I
can't reproduce "[1343989] gpasm RES directive segfault"...do you know if
that's been fixed? If you want to give me access I can do some
housecleaning in the bug tracker, but I'll still get your okay on any
CVS/svn commits until I'm well in the swing of things.
> However, in general for small programs that have constrained memory
> footprint I don't even bother with deallocating memory.
Is that a design choice or just "laziness"? I can definitely understand the
position that every extra bit of code is another opportunity for bugs,
especially in this case, I've just never seen any indication that it's
acceptable to release software with memory leaks. Actually, until recently
I didn't know the OS would clean up the memory leaks when you close the
program (I've heard AmigaOS actually wouldn't). Would there tend to be a
performance improvement one way or the other?
Regardless, if that's a common position and you know of any discussion or
articles about it, please point me to them.
David Barnett
