Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!watmsg!achowe
From: achowe@watmsg.waterloo.edu (CrackerJack)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Memory Allocator - who wants it?
Message-ID: <20813@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Date: 12 Sep 88 12:24:45 GMT
Sender: daemon@watmath.waterloo.edu
Reply-To: achowe@watmsg.UUCP (CrackerJack)
Distribution: world
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
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As a recent exercise I have written my own memory allocator to be used
with another project at the moment. It is designed to request heaps of
64k from the system (configurable) and then partion that up even further
as request come in. Garbage collection is done on the heaps so that when
a entire 64k heap is freed that is then returned to the system.
No garbage collection is done on the  partioning level.

Overhead for an allocated cell is on 2 bytes (the size of the request).
I used unsigned int (Acylon) for the storage type. The code code be
altered to use unsigned long if I get gcc soon. This will alter the
system heap limit of 64k.

So anyone want a copy? Also how to (who to) send it to for posting to
atari.source?

NOTE that use of this allocator requires that people use the memory
allocated correctly!!!! None of this off-by-one errors that write just
outside of allocated request (al-la Malloc compatiblity problem).

Also for anyone who wishes to try this on their own have a look at Knuth
and the source provided for a malloc in K&R C Programming Language
first edition for a simple example. My method is similar.
 

--
   achowe@watmsg.waterloo.edu     |  "Killed by pirates is good."
 __                    _          |    - The Princess Bride (movie)
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