Allok

Binary Search Tree based generic memory allocator replacement for malloc, log(n) best fit algorithm for high memory utilization and speed, but has high memory overhead than stdlib malloc.

Note: the alocator is thread-unsafe, so use global locks in your application, while you allocate and free memory using this allocator.

Note: This allocator does not gaurantee/satisfy any alignment requirements, hence do not use it on machines with alignments constraints (like ARM or similar RISC machines).

• Note: The allocator uses a lot of memory for management. Just for the idea see the analysis below:
  • After running the test case on my machine with allocation sample sizes {6, 16, 20, 35, 55}.
    • total usable memory (acquired over 197 allocations) = 5264 bytes
    • total memory used by the allocator = 4 * 4096 bytes (each page used by the allocator is 16 KB)
    • total memory used by the allocator for memory management = 56 * 175 bytes ==> 9800 bytes
    • 32.128 % efficiency in memory usage
• The memory allocator is not very efficient with smaller memory allocations like 6 - 24 bytes, because each allocated block will use up 56 bytes for its own management internally to the allocator.
• This allocator should be used for allocating larger block sizes for better memory usage efficiency, which is gauranteed because of O(log(n)) best fit algorithm.

Setup instructions

Install dependencies :

• Cutlery

Download source code :

• git clone https://github.com/RohanVDvivedi/Allok.git

Build from source :

• cd Allok
• make clean all

Install from the build :

• sudo make install
• Once you have installed from source, you may discard the build by make clean

Using The library

• add -lallok -lcutlery linker flag, while compiling your application
• do not forget to include appropriate public api headers as and when needed. this includes
  • #include<allok.h>

Instructions for uninstalling library

Uninstall :

• cd Allok
• sudo make uninstall