Memory Methods on Time_Object

 

   (TIME_OBJECT * ) GRAPE(Time_Object, "new-instance")(name)

CLASS * Time_Object
char * name

Create an instance of class Time_Object with name name. "new-instance" only sets the task to tskGeometry, initializes the time with "get-time" (see 7.4.1.7) and creates the time_parm instance.

   GRAPE(timeobj, "free")()

TIME_OBJECT * timeobj

Delete a Time_Object instance. All memory is freed by calling "list-free" and deleting time_parm. Refer to 5.4.4.1 for more information about "delete"/"free".

     

TIME_OBJECT * timeobj

"list-alloc" allocates the memory for status and time_step for num_of_frames frames (this value has to be set before calling "list-alloc"!). The status for all frames is set to NOT_ACTIVE, the frame times are initialized with equidistant values in [0, 1]. "list-alloc" frees all memory but time_parm which was allocated in "new-instance" and is therefore deleted in "free".

Of course "list-alloc" cannot allocate memory for the geometry since its class is arbitrary. The user has to provide a "compute-send" method (see 7.4.1.5) to allocate the memory and to create the data.

     

TIME_OBJECT * timeobj, * copy

Create a copy of timeobj and return it. The only difference between these methods is that "softcopy" uses the copy instance to store the copy, if copy is NULL a new instance is allocated.

Since "hardcopy" resp. "softcopy" is used to copy the geometry the result might differ, e.g. if the class of the underlying geometry is Geom2d (see 6.3.4.1).

inter and tree of the copy are set to NULL, time_parm is not copied but only ASSIGNed (this results in some problems and might be changed in the future).