4K. dynamic memory allocation (NEW)
-----------------------------------
the NEW operator is a powerful operator for dynamic memory allocation.
it has various forms:

(assuming DEF p:PTR TO whateverobj, q:PTR TO INT)

NEW p

is an expression that will allocate zero-ised memory for the object-size
p points to. the resulting pointer will be put in p, and is also
the value of the expression. if NEW fails to get memory, it raises
a "NEW" exception. 'NEW p' is therefore roughly equivalent with:

IF (p:=New(SIZEOF whateverobj))=NIL THEN Raise("MEM")

with the difference that p never gets any value if an exception
is raised, and that the former is of course an expression, not
a statement

but there's more: it's also possible to allocate an array dynamically:

NEW p[10]       /* array of 10 objects */

NEW q[a+1]      /* array of INT, size is runtime computed */

(this doesn't work when instantiating classes)
A problem with list [1,2,3] expressions sometimes is that they are static, and
when using these to build large datastructures they would need to be created
at run-time.  The dynamic equivalent to static lists may then be used:

p:=[1,2,3]:whateverobj           /* static structure */

p:=NEW [1,2,3]:whateverobj       /* dynamicly allocated! */

this works with both lists and typed-lists, and also with arrays:

NEW [1,2,3]        /* constant-list, dyn. (note: not a like a listvar!) */
NEW [1,2,3]:obj    /* object */
NEW [1,2,3]:INT    /* array of INTs */

freeing memory allocated with any variations of NEW is done automatically
at the end of the program, or by hand with END or FastDispose().
(note: the only exception is NEW <list>, use FastDisposeList())

If you use NEW [...]:obj, and the number of fields is less than the one
present in the object, additional 0/NIL/"\0" whatever fields will be added.
this allows extending objects without getting into trouble with allocations
like these.  (note that this is different from the static [...]:obj)

when you use NEW as a statement, multiple pointers may follow, i.e.:

	NEW a,b.create(),c

is valid.

special forms of NEW and END allow to use a PTR within an object, so you can
write things like

	NEW a.b.create()
	NEW a.b[50]
	END a.b

in the examples, the pointer `a' is not affected, the pointer `b' in the `a'
object is used.

NEW allocated lists are not to be used with the Link() functions (see  9H ).

(see  5M , END)
(see  9F  for the fast memory allocation functions NEW makes use of)