MS DOS overlay programming

[Eric J Korpela]

Addition:  here's probably how I would implement it given how you
described it and if I wanted to be quick about it.  Of course some
pointer massaging may be in order if you're not in a memory model
where routine pointers and variable pointers are compatible.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
class init_vars {
  // all your initialization variables.  No pointers please.
  // with an appropriate assignment operator.
};

const init_vars *init=(init_vars *)initialization_routine;

void initialization_routine() {
  init_var *tmpvars=new(init_vars);
  // do initialization stuff
  // add noops here if necessary to pad the routine to sizeof(init_vars)
  *init=*tmpvars;
  delete tmpvars;
}

void end_of_initialization_routine() {}  // for ease of calculating the size
                                                     // of the
initialization routine.