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Building your own memory manager for C/C++ projects

Arpan Sen (arpan@syncad.com), Technical lead, Synapti Computer Aided Design Pvt Ltd

Arpan Sen is a lead engineer working on the development of software in the electronic design automation industry. He has worked on several flavors of UNIX, including Solaris, SunOS, HP-UX, and IRIX as well as Linux and Microsoft Windows for several years. He takes a keen interest in software performance-optimization techniques, graph theory, and parallel computing. Arpan holds a post-graduate degree in software systems. You can reach him at arpansen@gmail.com.
(An IBM developerWorks Contributing Author)

Rahul Kumar Kardam (rahul@syncad.com), Senior Software Developer, Synapti Computer Aided Design Pvt Ltd

Rahul is a senior software developer specializing in developing complex C++-based electronic design automation tools such as simulators for hardware designs. He has programming experience in both Windows and UNIX platforms. Rahul enjoys tinkering with open source software, which he uses as a framework for designing robust, scalable code for the design automation tools he works on. He also enjoys technical writing.

Summary: Performance optimization of code is serious business. It's fairly common to see a piece of functionally correct software written in C or C++ that takes way too much memory, time, or, in the worst case, both. As a developer, one of the most powerful tools that C/C++ arms you with to improve processing time and prevent memory corruption is the control over how memory is allocated or deallocated in your code. This tutorial demystifies memory management concepts by telling you how to create your very own memory manager for specific situations.

Date: 19 Feb 2008
Level: Intermediate
PDF: A4 and Letter (83 KB)Get Adobe® Reader®

Activity: 70183 views
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Resources

Learn

The Memory Management Reference: This Ravenbrook Web site is a good place to get an introduction to memory management
"A memory allocator" (Doug Lea): Discusses techniques and algorithms.
"Inside memory management" (developerWorks, November 2004): This article provides an overview of the memory management techniques that are available to Linux programmers.
AIX and UNIX: The AIX and UNIX developerWorks zone provides a wealth of information relating to all aspects of AIX systems administration and expanding your UNIX skills.
Safari bookstore: Visit this e-reference library to find specific technical resources.
developerWorks technical events and webcasts: Stay current with developerWorks technical events and webcasts.