unicorn@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Harry E Miller) (06/18/91)
Can someone explain to me what the functions brk and sbrk do, and some possible uses of them. Thanks in advance! Harry E. Miller - "The Nine-Fingered Bandit" unicorn@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu
ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) (06/19/91)
In article <1991Jun18.142419.24545@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, unicorn@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Harry E Miller) writes: > Can someone explain to me what the functions brk and sbrk do, and > some possible uses of them. If you need an explanation, then they aren't in your manual, and that means you probably haven't got access to them. [Hint: they were UNIX specific. Hint: some of the non-UNIX systems that appear to have 'em do strange things with them. Hint: they aren't in POSIX.] They were very useful on PDP-11s. But now? Forget it. Use malloc() and free(). There was an article in the C Users Journal about them, but it wasn't a good article. Stick with malloc() and free(). -- Q: What should I know about quicksort? A: That it is *slow*. Q: When should I use it? A: When you have only 256 words of main storage.