VOIDP Malloc( amount )
LONG amount;
Malloc() requests a block of memory for use by an application.
Opcode
72 (0x48)
Availability
Parameters
amount specifies the amount of memory (in bytes) you wish to allocate. You may pass a value of -1L in which case the function will return the size of the largest free block of memory.
Binding
move.l amount,-(sp)
move.w #$48,-(sp)
trap #1
addq.l #6,sp
Return Value
Malloc() returns
NULL if there is no block large enough to fill the request or a pointer to the allocated block if the request was satisfied.
Malloc() allocates ST-RAM or TT-RAM based on the status of the
ProgramHeader? load flags. To specify the memory requirements in more detail, use
Mxalloc().
Caveats
Prior to
GEMDOS version 0.15,
Malloc( 0L ) will return a pointer to invalid memory as opposed to failing as it should.
Comments
Because
GEMDOS can only allocate a limited amount of blocks per process (as few as 20 depending on the version of
GEMDOS), applications should limit their usage of this call by allocating a few large blocks instead of many small blocks, or use a memory manager (like
malloc() provided in the C language) if possible.
See Also