3.23 Memory ¶

You can create a global variable v with

variable v ( -- addr )

v pushes the address of a cell in memory on the stack. This cell was reserved by variable. You can use ! (store) to store values from the stack into this cell and @ (fetch) to load the value from memory onto the stack:

v .
5 v ! .s
v @ .

You can see a raw dump of memory with dump:

v 1 cells .s dump

Cells ( n1 -- n2 ) gives you the number of bytes (or, more generally, address units (aus)) that n1 cells occupy. You can also reserve more memory:

create v2 20 cells allot
v2 20 cells dump

creates a variable-like word v2 and reserves 20 uninitialized cells; the address pushed by v2 points to the start of these 20 cells (see CREATE). You can use address arithmetic to access these cells:

3 v2 5 cells + !
v2 20 cells dump

You can reserve and initialize memory with ,:

create v3
  5 , 4 , 3 , 2 , 1 ,
v3 @ .
v3 cell+ @ .
v3 2 cells + @ .
v3 5 cells dump

Assignment: Write a definition vsum ( addr u -- n ) that computes the sum of u cells, with the first of these cells at addr, the next one at addr cell+ etc.

The difference between variable and create is that variable allots a cell, and that you cannot allot additional memory to a variable in standard Forth.

You can also reserve memory without creating a new word:

here 10 cells allot .
here .

The first here pushes the start address of the memory area, the second here the address after the dictionary area. You should store the start address somewhere, or you will have a hard time finding the memory area again.

Allot manages dictionary memory. The dictionary memory contains the system’s data structures for words etc. on Gforth and most other Forth systems. It is managed like a stack: You can free the memory that you have just alloted with

-10 cells allot
here .

Note that you cannot do this if you have created a new word in the meantime (because then your alloted memory is no longer on the top of the dictionary “stack”).

Alternatively, you can use allocate and free which allow freeing memory in any order:

10 cells allocate throw .s
20 cells allocate throw .s
swap
free throw
free throw

The throws deal with errors (e.g., out of memory).

And there is also a garbage collector, which eliminates the need to free memory explicitly.

Reference: Memory.