Max 5 API Reference

memory.h

/**
    @defgroup memory Memory Management

    In the past, Max has provided two separate APIs for memory management.
    One for allocating memory on the stack so that it was interrupt safe,
    including the getbytes() and freebytes() functions.
    The other, the "sysmem" API, were for allocating memory on the heap 
    where larger amounts of memory were needed and the code could be guaranteed to
    operate at non-interrupt level.
    
    Many things have changed in the environment of recent operating systems 
    (MacOS X and Windows XP/Vista), the memory routines function differently, 
    and the scheduler is no longer directly triggered by a hardware interrupt.
    In Max 5, the sysmem and getbytes API's have been unified, and thus may be 
    used interchangeably.

    The memory management unification can be switched on and off in the header files 
    if needed, to compile code for older versions of Max for example, by changing
    the use of #MM_UNIFIED in the Max headers.
    
    @section The Sysmem API
    
    The Sysmem API provides a number of utilities for allocating and 
    managing memory. It is relatively similar to some of the Macintosh 
    Memory Manager API, and not too different from Standard C library 
    memory functions. It is <em>not</em> safe to mix these routines with other 
    memory routines (e.g. don’t use malloc() to allocate a pointer, and 
    sysmem_freeptr() to free it).
    
    
*/

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