Reallocate

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Reallocate

Resizes a block, keeping its contents, and returns the new pointer, or 0 on failure.

Syntax

Declare Function Reallocate cdecl ( ByVal pointer As Any Ptr, ByVal count As UInteger ) As Any Ptr

Parameters

• pointer
• count

Description

Reallocates memory previously allocated with Allocate or CAllocate. The contents of the buffer are preserved, although if count is less than the original size of the memory block, the buffer will be truncated. If the size is increased, the added memory range is not initialized to anything.

The reallocation first attempts to resize the memory already allocated without moving its starting address in order to avoid recopying the data to be kept (returned pointer value unchanged). If this is not possible, a new separate memory area is allocated with recopy of the data to be kept before deallocating the old memory area (returned pointer value modified).

When using Reallocate, the result pointer must be saved to prevent a potential memory leak, because the original pointer may no longer be valid after reallocation. The value of the new pointer should be checked - if it is 0, the reallocation has failed - the original pointer remains valid, and the amount of memory allocated to it has not changed.

Reallocated memory must be freed with Deallocate when no longer needed.

If pointer is null (0), then ReAllocate behaves identically to Allocate. If pointer is valid and count is null (0), then ReAllocate behaves similar to Deallocate and a null (0) pointer is returned.

If the memory has previously been deallocated by a call to Deallocate or ReAllocate, the behavior is undefined.

When manually allocating memory for String descriptors (or Udts that contain one), if count is larger than the original size of the memory block, the new extra memory range must be explicitly cleared to zeroes before the first string use (for example, using Clear). Otherwise accessing the string will cause undefined results (trying to write or read at a random place in memory, or trying to deallocate a random pointer).

Note:

Reallocate cannot be used inside a member procedure if pointer points to the instance itself of the object, because that could cause horrible crashes:

Return Value

The address of the reallocated memory. A null (0) pointer is returned if reallocation was unsuccessful, and the original memory pointed to by pointer remains unchanged.

Remarks

Usage

result = Reallocate( pointer, count )

Dialect Differences

• Not available in the -lang qb dialect unless referenced with the alias __Reallocate.

Differences from QB

• New to FreeBASIC

See also

• Allocate
• CAllocate
• Deallocate

Examples

Dim a As Integer Ptr, b As Integer Ptr, i As Integer

a = Allocate( 5 * SizeOf(Integer) )   ' Allocate memory for 5 integers

If a = 0 Then Print "Error Allocating a": End

For i = 0 To 4

  a[i] = (i + 1) * 2   ' Assign integers to the buffer

Next i

b = Reallocate( a, 10 * SizeOf(Integer) )   ' Reallocate memory for 5 additional integers

If b <> 0 Then

    a = b   ' Discard the old pointer and use the new one

    For i = 5 To 9

      a[i] = (i + 1) * 2   ' Assign more integers to the buffer

    Next i

    For i = 0 To 9   ' Print the integers

      Print i, a[i]

    Next i

    Print

Else '' Reallocate failed, memory unchanged

    Print "Error Reallocating a"

    For i = 0 To 4   ' Print the integers

      Print i, a[i]

    Next i

    Print

End If

Deallocate a   ' Clean up

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Category: Memory Functions
Kind: function

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Reproduced from the FreeBASIC Wiki Manual under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 — with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts. Copyright © the FreeBASIC project and wiki contributors. See License.