From: Bardur A. <oca...@sc...> - 2004-08-21 21:00:31
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On Sat, Aug 21, 2004 at 04:50:23PM -0400, Jesse Guardiani wrote: [--snip--] > 2.) An integer counter puts a cap on the number of possible elements. This > is a more serious problem, IMO, which I didn't realize until a few minutes > ago. > Not really. The counter will always exactly equal the number of allocated element, which means that such a list would use >counter bytes of memory (usually considerably more depending on how much memory a "cons" cell requires). To allocate enough elements you'd need more than the available memory. (Because ints have a max of 2^31 on 32-bit platforms where memory is limited to 2GB (2GB usually reserved for kernel) and a max of 2^63 on 64-bit platforms where memory is limited to 2^63 bytes (again because 2^63 bytes are usually reserved for the kernel). In short: The counter cannot limit the number of elements you can allocate. Available memory will, though. -- Bardur Arantsson <ba...@im...> <ba...@sc...> The truth is out there, but lies are in your head. Terry Pratchett | Hogfather |