(v13) Plugin Memory

This page applies to Harlequin v13.1r0 and later; and to Harlequin MultiRIP but not Harlequin Core

Plugins are able to allocate memory, using malloc . Since this memory is not taken from the pool allocated for the RIP, but from the available system memory, you should beware of grabbing large amounts of it for a plugin: if you do, you may disrupt calculations based on Configure RIP's “Limit Memory Used” option. If a plugin needs memory, it can request it from the RIP's own pool. For more information see the Callback APIs documented in the sdk.chm Help file.

Because plugins can be unloaded and reloaded in memory, assignments to static variables can be lost when a plugin is unloaded. (However, if they were assigned in memory allocated by the RIP the static variables would survive plugin unloading and reloading.)

In addition, pointers to static data within the plugin may be invalidated when a plugin is unloaded, wherever they are held.

In cases where unloading would cause problems, a plugin can indicate that it must not be unloaded using the PF_DONT_UNLOAD flag in the response to the D_GET_FLAGS selector of an output plugin (see (v13) D_GET_FLAGS ).