[comp.lang.pascal] Storage efficiency

ejbehr@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Eric Behr) (03/19/91)

I'm writing a program for rather exotic matrix computations (quick & dirty
research tool, nothing useful to an ordinary person). It will have to deal
with potentially large matrices (containing structured variables, two
longints each), and a lot of them at that. Since I want parts of it to do
data preparation which would run on a Mac, I want to make it efficient in
terms of storage. Here is the question: what do typical implementations do
when a large parameter is passed as a var? does this work exactly like
passing a pointer, or does the procedure somehow use more memory that way?

Similarly, is there a difference between passing the result (e.g. in a
procedure that multiplies two large matrices) as a var parameter, versus
having the function return it as a pointer to a matrix?

If it matters, I'm using Think Pascal on the Mac and IBM Pascal compiler
under AIX.

Sorry if this is trivial or confusing - I admit I haven't thought about it
too much. Thanks - E.
-- 
Eric Behr, Illinois State University, Mathematics Department
Internet: ejbehr@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu    Bitnet: ebehr@ilstu