From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2007-08-06T16:39:55+09:00
Subject: Re: How to reclaim memory without GC.start

2007/8/6, Logan Capaldo <logancapaldo@gmail.com>:
> On 8/4/07, Erik Veenstra <erikveen@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > buffer = "." * 1024
> > > while STDIN.read(1024, buffer)
> > >   print buffer
> > > end
> >
> > What's the point of initializing the buffer with 1024 characters,
> > instead of just initializing it with an empty string? I must be
> > missing something...
> >
> > Thanks.
>
>
> I think the idea was to do the allocation upfront instead of when witting to
> the string. But since that will only happen once, (on the first read) it
> seems unnecessary. But I could be wrong.

I believe you are right. I probably rather did it for documentary
reasons but in fact it's not necessary.  There would only be a small
but likely unnoticeable advantage if for some reason #read would not
read up to limit chars right away.  Then there might be multiple
reallocations (i.e. until the buffer has reached the limit).  But I
guess this is not very likely, at least not with file IO.  Situation
might be different for sockets.

Kind regards

robert