Memory hungry Amigados scripts

[gulliver]

Lately, I have been creating script based applications for the Amiga. Nothing groundbreaking really, but very handy indeed.

The thing is, that I have noticed that to properly run those amigados scripts that were started with iconx, I need at least 178KB of free memory, if not the script will, at some point, fail due to low memory.

What I find frustrating, is that the script is not long and not complex, it just checks some conditions, and executes yet another script that contains a couple of lines with the copy command.

So am I doing something wrong, that all my scripts eat so much memory? Is there a way to overcome this?

I´d apreciate any hint.

[Lonewolf10]

Can you please attach the scripts so we can have a closer look?

It will be hard to say what is wrong without looking at them first.

[gulliver]

Thank you for your answer.

I am attaching one of these little creatures I made.

you should uncompress and copy all files respecting their location for the script to work. It is designed to work under AmigaOS 3.1.

The application is called Rebooter and its docs are located under the Locale/Help/ drawer. The application should be able run from both workbench and cli.

Remeber to issue a protect +s to the scripts so that Amigados doesnt complain.

I am all ears

[daxb]

Maybe it is the amount of copy buffer used. You can test it by echo the copy/delete lines, so they are just printed. Or try to get more information about memory usage with "avail" commands in the script.

ps: Why don`t you use Requestchoice what comes with OS3.1 and is there a reason for so many subscripts?

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by daxb

Maybe it is the amount of copy buffer used. You can test it by echo the copy/delete lines, so they are just printed. Or try to get more information about memory usage with "avail" commands in the script.

ps: Why don`t you use Requestchoice what comes with OS3.1 and is there a reason for so many subscripts?

I have already traced the amount of memory usage, the problem arises when the script is processing the copy command. With 175 KB of free memory it fails, but with 178KB it succeeds. So in a 512KB, under average load, it doesnt work

Many scripts are required, but it does not change a thing if I reduce them, or use requestchoice.

Another example, is the IconSet script I have in BetterWB (it uses requestchoice), and it only calls one other script. It fails the same way when copying glowicons when the memory available is under 178KB.

[daxb]

First, my "avail" command advice wasn`t good. Did you tried to set copy buffer to a lower value (e.g. "BUF=10")? Some days ago I read here on eab that the default buffer is 100 or 200 (each 512 byte?) and is allocated in one chunk. And there is a bug in copy <40.1.

I asked the questions because it looked unnecessary complicated to me but you may call the scripts from various places what would make sense. Not because of memory usage.

[gulliver]

It is not the copy bug you mention, as I have tried different copy command clones, and I get the same end result.

I am starting to believe, it is a fact of life in Amigados land that the memory requirements are so unnecesary high.

I apreciate your comments and suggestions, I already did some modifications to the scripts as you suggested.

I will try to modify the copy buffer as you mentioned, and report back.

[gulliver]

@daxb

Thank you very much!

Setting the copy buffer to a low value decreased the amount of memory used by the scripts to something very reasonable.

[daxb]

Nice that it works better for you. I assign the "thank" to the user(s) who wrote about the copy buffer because I just parroted that.