Memory too much?

[td4nos]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to compile a c program with the following float declaration:

int function(){
  float M[256][256][9];
}

I compile just fine (gcc filename.c, no other arguments), but when my program gets to that line where it creates the variable, the program crashes.

I am using CGG on Windows XP (this version: MinGW Distro - nuwen.net) and I get that "a.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close, please tell Microsoft about this blah blah".

Is there a limit of how big I can assign a memory space? If I declare "float M[256][256][7]" I get no issues, but changing that 7 to an 8 or a 9 crashes my program.

I reallyyyyyyy would like to be able to have that 9 in there, otherwise my code becomes much more of a chore to write.

And yes, I really do need to store 9 float attributes for each position in a 256x256 grid. Actually, I need 3 of these 3D-arrays of size [256][256][9] if possible.

[bithub]

Create the memory on the heap instead of the stack.

[Cooloorful]

576kb is a bit much there, sport. Use the heap, as suggested by bithub, but also you be able to do whatever you are doing another way. Though I could be wrong....

typedef float[256][256][9] floatArray;

int function(void)
  floatArray *m = malloc(sizeof(floatArray));

  free(m);
}

[td4nos]

Create the memory on the heap instead of the stack.

This appears to work, I will give it a go, thanks!

576kb is a bit much there, sport. Use the heap, as suggested by bithub, but also you be able to do whatever you are doing another way. Though I could be wrong....

Oh, I realize that 576kb is a lot, but it really is a lot nicer to do this. I know, lots of people over-do it with their array declaration sizes, and I was expecting someone to say this, but in this case, yes, it is really helpful. As for your code suggestions, I will give that a try if defining the variables in the heap gives me problems. Thanks!

[Cooloorful]

576kb isn't a lot of RAM, but it is kind of a lot when you are considering the stack sizes of most systems. There is no hard and fast rule for when to allocate memory or when to just use the stack. 64k seems like a lot. 4k is a lot for an embedded system. But those are guidelines at best.

[Scarlet7]

The size will be more than 576kb, a float size is 4 bytes.

576kb * 4 = 2.3mb

[bithub]

The size will be more than 576kb, a float size is 4 bytes.

576kb * 4 = 2.3mb

Yeah, and 2MB is a pretty common stack size.

[Cooloorful]

Good catch, Scarlet7. I guess your (presumeably compiled with debugging options) stack apparently capable of holding 1.75Mb without an issue. As Scarlet7 indicated though 2.25MB is high by any standard. Even with a 2MB stack, an array of [256][256][8] would be an issue since its exactly 2MB.

[Elysia]

Yeah, and 2MB is a pretty common stack size.

So is 1 MB. It's the default for Windows threads, I believe.