DEL_DEFB

Syntax

DEL_DEFB

Location

Toolkit II

QDOS stores information concerning devices and files (and in relation to files, even their contents) in areas of memory known as ‘slave blocks’ (memory permitting). These slave blocks can be very useful, since when the computer tries to access the same device (or file) again, the access is much quicker, since the relevent details can be loaded from memory, rather than the device - the computer only need look at the device to make certain that it is the same device (or disk) as was previously used.

There are three problems with the use of these slave blocks:

  • The initial device access is slowed down as all of the information is effectively read twice - once into memory and once into the program.

  • Some disk drives do not support a means of checking if a disk has been amended on a second computer since the last access - meaning that the old version of the information stored in the slave blocks can be loaded instead

  • On some hard-disks, the hard-disk itself may not have been altered (you may need to use a command such as WIN_FLUSH).

The command DEL_DEFB can assist with the second of these problems, by deleting all of the slave blocks from memory. Another problem which can be assisted by DEL_DEFB is ‘heap fragmentation’. To keep memory tidy, there is an internal list which says where to find which pieces of information. These lists reserve memory and can lead to the phenomenon known as heap fragmentation. The following example demonstrates this:

PRINT FREE_MEM
a=ALCHP(10000)
b=ALCHP(10000)
PRINT FREE_MEM
RECHP a
PRINT FREE_MEM

First, we noted how much memory is free and then we reserved 20000 bytes of memory in two steps. So there are now 20000 bytes of free memory less. Now, we release the first 10000 bytes and look again at the free memory: it has not actually increased as much as you would have thought! Actually, the memory isn’t lost. FREE_MEM returns the largest piece of free memory in RAM. A further ALCHP(10000) would not reduce FREE_MEM in the above example.

Maybe an illustration would make memory management clearer:

free memory          |-------------------------|
ALCHP(10000)         |######|------------------|
ALCHP(10000)         |######|######|-----------|
release first block  |======|######|-----------|

Key:

-- : free memory (returned by FREE_MEM)
## : reserved memory
== : free memory (used for ramdisks)

The above-mentioned internal list allocates a small piece of memory which may reduce the largest piece of free RAM available to certain operations which draw large chunks of memory at a time, causing them to fail (out of memory), even though there would be enough memory had the ‘drive definition blocks’ not fragmented it. The command DEL_DEFB clears these blocks, thus helping to relieve the heap fragmentation.

NOTE

Because DEL_DEFB deletes the slave blocks, future device accesses will be slowed!

WARNING

Do not use DEL_DEFB if any channels are open to a file.

CROSS-REFERENCE

RECHP, CLCHP, RELEASE, FREE_MEM, FREE. Dynamic RAM disks use effectively all of the free memory. FORMAT lists other ways of causing heap fragmentation.