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Diffstat (limited to 'doc/m4.texinfo')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/m4.texinfo | 9 |
1 files changed, 4 insertions, 5 deletions
diff --git a/doc/m4.texinfo b/doc/m4.texinfo index 6408881b..2a31238b 100644 --- a/doc/m4.texinfo +++ b/doc/m4.texinfo @@ -6110,17 +6110,16 @@ time. @cindex @env{TMPDIR} Numbered diversions are counted from 0 upwards, diversion number 0 -being the normal output stream. The number of simultaneous diversions -is limited mainly by the memory used to describe them, because @acronym{GNU} +being the normal output stream. @acronym{GNU} @code{m4} tries to keep diversions in memory. However, there is a -limit to the overall memory usable by all diversions taken altogether +limit to the overall memory usable by all diversions taken together (512K, currently). When this maximum is about to be exceeded, a temporary file is opened to receive the contents of the biggest diversion still in memory, freeing this memory for other diversions. When creating the temporary file, @code{m4} honors the value of the environment variable @env{TMPDIR}, and falls back to @file{/tmp}. -So, it is theoretically possible that the number and aggregate size of -diversions is limited only by available disk space. +Thus, the amount of available disk space provides the only real limit on +the number and aggregate size of diversions. Diversions make it possible to generate output in a different order than the input was read. It is possible to implement topological sorting |