From roebuck at odin.mdacc.tmc.edu  Tue Jul 19 23:02:42 2005
From: roebuck at odin.mdacc.tmc.edu (Paul Roebuck)
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 16:02:42 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [Rd] R_AllocatePtr
Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.4.58.0507191522090.84377@odin.mdacc.tmc.edu>

Had been looking into Luke Tierney's R_AllocatePtr() and
was left with a question about exactly when does R reclaim
heap memory. Implication of 'simpleref.nw' is that one can
allocate C data on the R heap, and as long as pointer object
is alive, the data and pointer will remain valid. But it
calls allocString() which is implemented using R_alloc().

'Writing R Extensions" says R will reclaim memory allocated
using R_alloc() at the end of the .Call().

Was the intent that its invocation be restricted to within
a .Call()? Doesn't sound as though it could be used to return
an SEXP from a .Call() with its data intact.

----------------------------------------------------------
SIGSIG -- signature too long (core dumped)



[Rd] R_AllocatePtr
Paul Roebuck