Mem Allocator

About

This memory allocation interface can be used to request a free chunk of memory and use it as wanted. Once memory is no longer required it is needes to return it throw the corresponding function call. Usage are specified below.

Note

This memory managment interface is the new version of hallocator, my previous malloc library. Now memory is limitless (At least can grow dynamically), calloc is implemented and some other features that are hiden from user.

Caution

Note for users. If you noticed a strange behaviour while using the interface, and you think it is caused by the implementation, please open an issue or contact me (contact info in my profile). Thanks for your patience.

Name

malloc, free, calloc, realloc - Allocate and free dynamic memory.

Synopsis

• void *malloc(size_t size);
• void free(void *_Nullable ptr);
• void *calloc(size_t nmemb, size_t size);
• void *realloc(void *_Nullable ptr, size_t size);

Description

• malloc(): The malloc() function allocates size bytes and returns a pointer to the allocated memory. The memory is not initialized. Size must be grater than 0 (Non-gnu approach).

• free(): The free() function frees the memory space pointed to by ptr, which must have been returned by a previous call to malloc() or related functions. Otherwise, or if ptr has already been freed, undefined behavior occurs. If ptr is NULL, no operation is performed.

• calloc(): The calloc() function allocates memory for an array of nmemb elements of size bytes each and returns a pointer to the allocated memory. The memory is set to zero. Size must be grater than 0 (Non-gnu approach).

• realloc(): The realloc() function changes the size of the memory block pointed to by ptr to size bytes. The contents of the memory will be unchanged in the range from the start of the region up to the minimum of the old and new sizes. If the new size is larger than the old size, the added memory will not be initialized.

  If ptr is NULL, then the call is equivalent to malloc(size), for all values of size.

  If size is equal to zero, and ptr is not NULL, then the call is equivalent to free(ptr).

  Unless ptr is NULL, it must have been returned by an earlier call to malloc or related functions. If the area pointed to was moved, a free(ptr) is done.

Return value

The malloc(), calloc() and realloc() functions return a pointer to the allocated memory, which is suitably aligned for any type that fits into the requested size or less. On error, these functions return NULL and set errno. Attempting to allocate more than PTRDIFF_MAX bytes is considered an error, as an object that large could cause later pointer subtraction to overflow.

The free() function returns no value, and preserves errno.

The realloc() function return NULL if ptr is not NULL and the requested size is zero; this is not considered an error. Otherwise, the returned pointer may be the same as ptr if the allocation was not moved (e.g., there was room to expand the allocation in-place), or different from ptr if the allocation was moved to a new address. If these functions fail, the original block is left untouched; it is not freed or moved.

Errors

calloc(), malloc() and realloc() can fail with the following error:

ENOMEM Out of memory.

Have to check errno when interface returns NULL, no errors make the program exit.

Attributes

Functions are not thread-safe, lock have to be managed externly. Sorry.

Standards

malloc(), free(), calloc(), realloc()

  C11, POSIX.1-2008.