Inside Macintosh: Memory
When your application attempts to allocate memory (for example, by calling either the NewPtr or NewHandle function), the Memory Manager might need to compact or purge the heap to free memory and to fuse many small free blocks into fewer large free blocks. The Memory Manager first tries to obtain the requested amount of space by compacting the heap; if compaction fails to free the required amount of space, the Memory Manager then purges the heap.
When compacting the heap, the Memory Manager moves unlocked, relocatable blocks down until they reach nonrelocatable blocks or locked, relocatable blocks. You can compact the heap manually, by calling either the CompactMem function or the MaxMem function.
In a purge of the heap, the Memory Manager sequentially purges unlocked, purgeable relocatable blocks until it has freed enough memory or until it has purged all such blocks. It purges a block by deallocating it and setting its master pointer to NIL .
If you want, you can manually purge a few blocks or an entire heap in anticipation of a memory shortage. To purge an individual block manually, call the EmptyHandle procedure. To purge your entire heap manually, call the PurgeMem procedure or the MaxMem function.
In general, you should let the Memory Manager purge and compact your heap, instead of performing these operations yourself.