Month: April 2024

Implementing malloc() e free() — reducing the heap even more

In our journey implementing malloc() and free(), we learned to reuse memory blocks. Today, we will make a very simple optimization: reduce the heap size as much as possible.

This post is part of a series on implementing the malloc() and free() functions. In the previous article, we learned how to reuse memory blocks. It was a significant advancement, but there’s much more room for improvement.

One example is reducing the size of the heap, as explained in the first post. When we free the last memory block, we move the top of the heap to the end of the previous block. However, this previous block might also be free, as well as others. Consider the scenario below:

void *ptr1 = abmalloc(8);
void *ptr2 = abmalloc(8);
abfree(ptr1);
abfree(ptr2);

In this case, when we free the block pointed to by ptr2, we make ptr1 the last block. However, ptr1 is also free, so we could further reduce the heap size.

To achieve this, we’ll iterate over the pointers from the end of the list until there are no more free blocks. If the header of the received pointer points to the last block and the previous block is free, we move the header pointer to it. We repeat this process until we reach an available block whose previous block is in use (or NULL if it’s the first block). Then, we execute the heap reduction procedure:

if (header == last) {
  while ((header->previous != NULL) && header->previous->available) {
    header = header->previous;
  }
  last = header->previous;
  brk(header);
} else {

Now, though, we need to fix a bug in abfree(). According to the specification, the free() function should accept a null pointer and do nothing. However, if abfree() receives NULL, we will have a segmentation fault! Fortunately, it is easy to fix by adding a check at the beginning of the function:

void abfree(void *ptr) {
   if (ptr == NULL) {
     return;
   }
   Header *header = (Header*) ptr - 1;

So, here’s our abfree() function at the moment:

void abfree(void *ptr) {
   if (ptr == NULL) {
     return;
   }
   Header *header = (Header*) ptr - 1;
   if (header == last) {
     while ((header->previous != NULL) && header->previous->available) {
       header = header->previous;
     }
     last = header->previous;
     brk(header);
   } else {
     header->available = true;
   }
 }

Reducing the size of the heap is a simple optimization, but there are still challenges ahead. For example, the way we choose blocks to reuse can lead to larger than necessary heaps. We will why, and how to solve that, in the next post.

(This post is a translation of Implementando malloc() e free() — reduzindo ainda mais o heap, first published in Suspensão de Descrença.)