Sys_realloc

Synopsis #

Header: fxcg/heap.h
Syscall index: 0x1F46
Function signature: void *sys_realloc(void *p, int sz)

Changes the size of a memory block allocated on the heap with sys_malloc.\

Parameters #

  • p - pointer to existing allocated block.
  • sz - new size of the allocated block.\

Returns #

A pointer to the buffer, possibly different from the original, that has the new size. A null pointer will be returned if sz is zero (the memory block is freed), or if for some reason the buffer could not be reallocated (and in such case, the original block p points to will not have been modified).\

Comments #

The heap implementation on the Prizm appears to have some bugs; it also appears to not be able to optimize heap allocation so that fragmentation is avoided. See this forum thread for more information and discussion.

The stack can provide a bigger continuous RAM area than the heap (up to about 500 KiB, depending on static RAM requirements, versus about 128 KiB). This, plus the limitations described above, means that to get the most out of the memory available to add-ins, one has to use non-standard (“incorrect”) practices such as preferably using the stack instead of the heap.