Language Reference

FREE Statement

frees matrix storage space

FREE matrices;

FREE / <matrices>;

where matrices are names of matrices.

The FREE statement causes the specified matrices to lose their values; the memory is then freed for other uses. After execution of the FREE statement, the matrix does not have a value, and it returns 0 for the NROW and NCOL functions. Any printing attributes (assigned by the MATTRIB statement) are not released.

The FREE statement is used mostly in large applications or under tight memory constraints to make room for more data (matrices) in the workspace.

For example, to free the matrices , , and , use the following statement:

  
    free a b c;
 

If you want to free all matrices, specify a slash (/) after the keyword FREE. If you want to free all matrices except a few, then list the ones you do not want to free after the slash. For example, to free all matrices except and , use the following statement:

  
    free / d e;
 

For more information, see the discussion of workspace storage in Chapter 19.