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Memory management by Share[]?

• To: mathgroup at yoda.physics.unc.edu
• Subject: Memory management by Share[]?
• From: wiscombe at climate.gsfc.nasa.gov
• Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 14:01:21 -0400

Dear MathGroup:

  Memory is a severe constraint when running Mma on a MacIIfx, as I do. 
Mostly I just watch the memory bar creep toward maximum, trying to
understand how my commands cause its motion, but with little understanding.
 So I was interested to see, in sec. 2.11.5 of The Bible, that there are a
couple of methods to exert user control.  I have questions about Share[].

  Share[] seems like a command you would want to execute in your init.m
file, since it promises to significantly reduce memory requirements; in
fact you would expect it to be built into the kernel and not under user
control.  Thus it must be dangerous; indeed there is a remark about "the
sharing of subexpressions is often destroyed as soon as you use an operator
like /.".  Does anyone have any experience with Share[]?  Why doesn't
everyone use it?



-------------------------------------------
Dr. Warren J. Wiscombe
NASA Goddard, Code 913, Greenbelt, MD 20771
(301) 286-8499