Chapter 18: Memory and Variable Management
340
The
Garbage Collect?
message lets you know an archive will take longer than usual. It also alerts
you that the archive will fail if there is not enough memory.
The message can also alert you when a program is caught in a loop that repetitively fills the user
data archive. Select
No
to cancel the garbage collection process, and then find and correct the
errors in your program.
When YES is selected, the TI-84 Plus will attempt to rearrange the archived variables to make
additional room.
Responding to the Garbage Collection Message
Note:
The process message
Defragmenting...
is displayed whenever an application marked for
deletion is encountered. Garbage collection may take up to 20 minutes, depending on how much
of archive memory has been used to store variables.
After garbage collection, depending on how much additional space is freed, the variable may or
may not be archived. If not, you can unarchive some variables and try again.
variable B
variable C
variable A
variable D
Depending on its size,
variable D is stored in
one of these locations.
Sector 1
Sector 3
Sector 2
Empty
block
Why Is Garbage Collection Necessary?
The user data archive is divided into sectors. When you first begin archiving, variables are stored
consecutively in sector 1. This continues to the end of the sector.
An archived variable is stored in a continuous block within a single sector. Unlike an application
stored in user data archive, an archived variable cannot cross a sector boundary. If there is not
enough space left in the sector, the next variable is stored at the beginning of the next sector.
Typically, this leaves an empty block at the end of the previous sector.
•
To cancel, select
1:No
.
•
If you select
1:No
, the message
ERR:ARCHIVE FULL
will be displayed.
•
To continue archiving, select
2:Yes
.
•
If you select
2:Yes
, the process message
Garbage Collecting...
or
Defragmenting...
will be displayed.
