Why no reset() function?

[Prad]

Hello,

In BASIC there is a very useful function called RESET that clears out
all the stored variables and restores memory state to startup.

Why is there not a similar function in C? It should free up all heap
allocations without having to free them individually.

Often programs will have memory leaks, so if they are run over long
times then it's necessary to restart them sometimes. With a reset()
function, they could effectively restart themselves by freeing their
memory without needing to be closed and reopened.

[Ian Collins]

Prad wrote:

Hello,

In BASIC there is a very useful function called RESET that clears out
all the stored variables and restores memory state to startup.

Why is there not a similar function in C? It should free up all heap
allocations without having to free them individually.

Because it would probably be disastrous. If you wish to do this, just
run your application from another, exit periodically and have the parent
restart the application.

Often programs will have memory leaks, so if they are run over long
times then it's necessary to restart them sometimes. With a reset()
function, they could effectively restart themselves by freeing their
memory without needing to be closed and reopened.

No, it is simply necessary to clean up your mess and not leak memory.

--
Ian Collins.

[Richard Tobin]

In article <sl*******************@nospam.invalid>,
Prad <no****@nospam.comwrote:

>In BASIC there is a very useful function called RESET that clears out
all the stored variables and restores memory state to startup.

I don't recall that in any version of Basic I used, but it was
a long time ago.

>Why is there not a similar function in C? It should free up all heap
allocations without having to free them individually.

Why not just run the program again?

Presumably it existed in whatever Basic you used because it's an
interactive, interpreted environment. C programming isn't usually
done like that.

-- Richard
--
:wq

[=?iso-8859-1?q?Tom=E1s_=D3_h=C9ilidhe?=]

Prad:

Hello,

In BASIC there is a very useful function called RESET that clears out
all the stored variables and restores memory state to startup.

Why is there not a similar function in C? It should free up all heap
allocations without having to free them individually.

Such a thing could be coded quite easily. I'd hijack "malloc" and keep a
table of all allocated memory, maybe something like:

void *allocs[256] = {};

void **p_current_alloc = allocs;

void *my_malloc(size_t const len)
{
return *p_current_alloc++ = malloc(len);
}

void Reset(void)
{
void **p = allocs;

do free(*p++);
while (p_current_alloc != p);

p_current_alloc = allocs;
}

Of course tho, you'd be better off using malloc properly.

--
Tomás Ó hÉilidhe

[Robert Latest]

Prad wrote:

In BASIC there is a very useful function called RESET that clears out
all the stored variables and restores memory state to startup.

You could try setjmp() and longjmp(), but that won't clear dynamically
allocated storage.

Often programs will have memory leaks, so if they are run over long
times then it's necessary to restart them sometimes.

s/restart/fix
s/sometimes/once

robert

[dj3vande]

In article <fo**********@aioe.org>, testdemo <te******@irs.govwrote:

>Just testing...

You fail.
Test posts go in newsgroups whose names end in ".test".
Quoting an entire post to top-post a content-free comment is a Bad Idea
no matter where you do it.
Bogus email addresses should not resolve to real domains.
dave

--
Dave Vandervies dj3vande at eskimo dot com
By the time you get a result out of scanf with %d, the result *IS* an integer,
regardless of what was input, with the exception of a few platforms where an
int can hold a live goat. --Gordon Burditt in CLC