Mdthbs

I'd like to draw a memory layout diagram in Tikz that looks a bit like the following:

Note that the original was an SVG file, and conversion to PNG causes the weird [Not supported by viewer] errors, not sure what that's about.

Anyway, how can I recreate that diagram in Tikz, but without the numbered stages, and with the sections starting at the very left?

I tried to modify this answer to near it to the posted image, but I don't know enough Tikz to get it quite there.

Something like this:

This is done using tikz but to hide the technicalities I have defined a macro MemoryLayout that accepts a coma separated list of x-coordinates/colours/labels so that the image above was produced by:

MemoryLayout{

  12/blue!10/A,

  21/orange!20/B,

  30/red!30/C,

  39/yellow!30/D,

  48/green!30/E,

  62/white/relax

}

Use a label of relax when you do not want a label.

All that this macro does is loop over the input data to draw the picture using standard tikz commands. Here is the full code:

documentclass[tikz, border=5mm]{standalone}

usetikzlibrary{decorations.pathreplacing}



newcommandMemoryLayout[1]{

  begin{tikzpicture}[scale=0.3]

     draw[thick](0,0)--++(0,3)node[above]{$0$};

     foreach pt/col/lab [remember=pt as tp (initially 0)] in {#1} {

       foreach a in {tp,...,pt-1} {

          draw[fill=col](-a,0) rectangle ++(-1,2);

       }

       draw[thick](-pt,0)--++(0,3)node[above]{$pt$};

       iflabrelaxrelaxelse

         draw[thick,decorate, decoration={brace,amplitude=4mm}]

            (-tp,-0.2)--node[below=4mm]{lab} (-pt,-0.2);

       fi

     }

  end{tikzpicture}

}



begin{document}



  MemoryLayout{

    12/blue!10/A,

    21/orange!20/B,

    30/red!30/C,

    39/yellow!30/D,

    48/green!30/E,

    62/white/relax

  }



end{document}

To remove the numbers just comment out the two draw[thick]...; commands.

Just for fun an implementation using only xcolor (and amstext for text in the labels below the brace). The memory command takes the following arguments:

memory[<width>]{<num>}[<height>]{<color>}[<label>]

<width>
: is the width of a single cell

<height>
: is the height of the cells

<color>
: is the colour used by the cells, it can contain an optional argument and a mandatory one, or just the mandatory one forwarded to textcolor, so both {[gray]{.85}} and {white!85!black} are valid.

<label>
: the text which is printed below the brace, if it is left out no brace will be drawn.

The borders' thickness is the current value of fboxrule, the rules don't add to the size of the cells. To draw more than a single block of memory, just put multiple memory instances after each other, make sure to not put a space in between. The size of the <label> might create white space, you'd have to take care for that.

documentclass[]{article}



usepackage{amstext}

usepackage{xcolor}



makeatletter

begingroup

lccode`A=`-

lccode`N=`N

lccode`V=`V

lowercase{endgroupdefmemory@noval{ANoValue-}}

longdefmemory@fiBgbfi#1#2{fi}

longdefmemory@fiTBbfi#1#2#3{fi#2}

newcommandmemory@ifnovalF[1]%>>=

  {%

    ifxmemory@noval#1%

      memory@fiBgb

    fi

    @firstofone

  }%=<<

newcommandmemory@ifnovalTF[1]%>>=

  {%

    ifxmemory@noval#1%

      memory@fiTBb

    fi

    @secondoftwo

  }%=<<

newcommandmemory@Oarg[2]%>>=

  {%

    @ifnextchar[{memory@Oarg@{#2}}{#2{#1}}%

  }%=<<

longdefmemory@Oarg@#1[#2]%>>=

  {%

    #1{#2}%

  }%=<<

newcommand*memory@oarg%>>=

  {%

    memory@Oargmemory@noval

  }%=<<

newcommand*memory@ifcoloropt%>>=

  {%

    @ifnextchar[memory@ifcoloropt@truememory@ifcoloropt@false

  }%=<<

longdefmemory@ifcoloropt@true#1memory@noval#2#3%>>=

  {%

    #2%

  }%=<<

longdefmemory@ifcoloropt@false#1memory@noval#2#3%>>=

  {%

    #3%

  }%=<<

newlengthmemory@width

newlengthmemory@height

setlengthmemory@width{7pt}

setlengthmemory@height{10pt}

newcountmemory@num

newcommand*memory@blocks[2]%>>=

  {%

    memory@num#1relax

    fboxsep-fboxrule

    memory@ifcoloropt#2memory@noval

      {defmemory@color{textcolor#2}}

      {defmemory@color{textcolor{#2}}}%

    loop

    ifnummemory@num>0

      fbox{memory@color{rule{memory@width}{memory@height}}}%

      kern-fboxrule

      advancememory@numm@ne

    repeat

  }%=<<

% memory:

%  [#1]: width

%   #2 : count

%  [#3]: height

%   #4 : colour

%  [#5]: label

newcommand*memory%>>=

  {%

    begingroup

    memory@oargmemory@a

  }%=<<

newcommand*memory@a[2]%>>=

  {%

    % #1 width

    % #2 count

    memory@ifnovalF{#1}{memory@width#1relax}%

    memory@Oargmemory@height{memory@b{#2}}%

  }%=<<

newcommand*memory@b[3]%>>=

  {%

    % #1 count

    % #2 height

    % #3 colour

    memory@ifnovalF{#2}{memory@height#2relax}%

    memory@oarg{memory@c{#1}{#3}}%

  }%=<<

newcommand*memory@c[3]%>>=

  {%

    % #1 count

    % #2 colour

    % #3 label

    memory@ifnovalTF{#3}

      {ensuremath{memory@blocks{#1}{#2}}}

      {ensuremath{underbrace{memory@blocks{#1}{#2}}_{text{#3}}}}%

    endgroup

  }%=<<

makeatother



begin{document}

memory{8}{orange}%

memory{8}{green}[{makebox[0pt]{[Not supported by viewer]}}]%

memory{8}{yellow}%

end{document}



% vim: fdm=marker fmr=>>=,=<<