[Info-vax] Pascal query

[Richard B. Gilbert]

Ade wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've had to use Pascal to shift some data around from one set of common 
> memory images on a Vax to the new ones on an Itanium. Anyway, I wrote a 
> quick program to dump the contents into a file which could then be compiled 
> on the Itanium and run to populate the data structures. This program just 
> would not compile. All it consists of is a (hell of a) lot variable:=value; 
> statements. I kept getting insufficient virtual memory errors so I played 
> with the quotas and the page file until I hit a 20gb pagefile and a process 
> pagefile quota of 20,000,000. I then split the results into much smaller 
> chunks to get them to compile.
> 
> There's probably around 1.2 million assignment statements altogether. Can 
> anyone suggest why the program wouldn't compile?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ade 
> 
> 

Your program might just be the ODDEST program that the compiler has ever 
seen!  The people who designed and coded the compiler probably never 
even imagined a situation such as you have described.

And, of course, the program never actually USES these variables.  If the 
compiler is optimizing it will probably discard all those assignments 
since they are never used and so there is no point in having them.