On 11/09/13 15:13, monarch_dodra wrote:
That's somewhat better, as it would allow the GC to collect my buffer, if it
wants to, but I wouldn't actually know about it afterwards which leaves me
screwed.
Just to clarify, is this buffer meant only for internal use in your function or
is it meant to be externally accessed as well? I'd kind of assumed the former.
Either way, isn't it sufficient to have some kind of
if (buf is null)
{
// allocate the buffer
}
check in place? The basic model seems right -- at the moment when you need the
buffer, you check if it's allocated (and if not, allocate it as needed); you
indicate to the GC that it shouldn't collect the memory; you use the buffer; and
the moment it's no longer needed, you indicate to the GC that it's collectable
again.
It means having to be very careful to check the buffer's allocation status
whenever you want to use it, but I think that's an unavoidable consequence of
wanting a static variable that can be freed if needed.
The alternative I thought of was something like comparing the size difference
between the currently-needed buffer and the last-needed buffer (... or if you
want to be over-the-top, compare to a running average:-), and if the current one
is sufficiently smaller, free the old one and re-alloc a new one; but that's a
bit _too_ greedy in the free-up-memory stakes, I think.
