Re: Indentation and gc

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Lynn Winebarger <owinebar@gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2023 10:52:32 -0500
> Cc: Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>, spacibba@aol.com, arne_bab@web.de, 
>       emacs-devel <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
> 
> On Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 10:32 AM Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> 
>  Again, you are reasoning about the value as if it were related to the
>  maximum memory footprint Emacs could have.  But in fact, it is related
>  only to the _increment_ of memory Emacs can have before it should stop
>  and consider how much of that is garbage.
> 
> So, should there be a parameter that controls the maximum amount of memory 
> emacs is allowed to allocate
> (and not just in the lisp heap), like an internal ulimit? 

We already have that: the 85% of total memory, where we display a
warning.

However, on many modern systems, knowing how much memory Emacs
actually uses is not easy/reliable, I think.  So any such limitation
would be similarly unreliable.

> The uncertainty of that limit in a given system appears to be motivating the 
> calibration of these gc
> parameters.

I don't think so. The issue at hand is not how much total memory a
given system can use, the issue is how much of it remains available,
after what the programs already running consumed.