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Full Discussion: Memory release latency issue
Operating Systems Linux Red Hat Memory release latency issue Post 302915767 by Corona688 on Thursday 4th of September 2014 02:46:29 PM
Old 09-04-2014
In short, malloc() is the wrong tool for throwing around entire gigabytes of memory at once. You should cut out the middleman and use mmap().

The first time you request an entire gigabyte of memory, malloc() probably has to call brk to extend the heap segment. (This is a system memory call related to mmap.) This adds a vast new region of unused memory to the heap -- memory that's all guaranteed to hold nothing but ASCII NULLs. It just gives it straight to you and doesn't bother to clean it.

Then you free() and malloc() it again. Because it's been used, malloc() will memset() that entire gig of memory to NULL for you to make it "clean" again.

By using mmap() instead, you can let the OS do that as-needed instead of in one 1-gig write. mmap also has other useful features like file backing -- if all you're doing is dumping 5 gigs of file into memory, mmap can save you a ton of trouble and speed and RAM.

Or, if you went the other direction, you could just keep reusing the same block of memory around all the time without free()ing it.

Last edited by Corona688; 09-04-2014 at 03:56 PM..
 

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mapmalloc(3MALLOC)					Memory Allocation Library Functions					mapmalloc(3MALLOC)

NAME
mapmalloc - memory allocator SYNOPSIS
cc [ flag ... ] file ... -lmapmalloc [ library ... ] #include <stdlib.h> void *malloc(size_t size); void *calloc(size_t nelem, size_t elsize); void free(void * ptr); void *realloc(void *ptr, size_t size); DESCRIPTION
The collection of malloc functions in this library use mmap(2) instead of sbrk(2) for acquiring new heap space. The functions in this library are intended to be used only if necessary, when applications must call sbrk(), but need to call other library routines that might call malloc. The algorithms used by these functions are not sophisticated. There is no reclaiming of memory. The malloc() and free() functions provide a simple general-purpose memory allocation package. The malloc() function returns a pointer to a block of at least size bytes suitably aligned for any use. The argument to free() is a pointer to a block previously allocated by malloc(), calloc() or realloc(). If ptr is a NULL pointer, no action occurs. Undefined results will occur if the space assigned by malloc() is overrun or if some random number is handed to free(). The calloc() function allocates space for an array of nelem elements of size elsize. The space is initialized to zeros. The realloc() function changes the size of the block pointed to by ptr to size bytes and returns a pointer to the (possibly moved) block. The contents will be unchanged up to the lesser of the new and old sizes. If the new size of the block requires movement of the block, the space for the previous instantiation of the block is freed. If the new size is larger, the contents of the newly allocated portion of the block are unspecified. If ptr is NULL, realloc() behaves like malloc() for the specified size. If size is 0 and ptr is not a null pointer, the space pointed to is freed. Each of the allocation functions returns a pointer to space suitably aligned (after possible pointer coercion) for storage of any type of object. The malloc() and realloc() functions will fail if there is not enough available memory. Entry points for malloc_debug(), mallocmap(), mallopt(), mallinfo(), memalign(), and valloc() are empty routines, and are provided only to protect the user from mixing malloc() functions from different implementations. RETURN VALUES
If there is no available memory, malloc(), realloc(), and calloc() return a null pointer. When realloc() returns NULL, the block pointed to by ptr is left intact. If size, nelem, or elsize is 0, a unique pointer to the arena is returned. ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |MT-Level |Safe | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ SEE ALSO
brk(2), getrlimit(2), mmap(2), realloc(3C), malloc(3MALLOC), attributes(5) SunOS 5.10 20 Feb 2004 mapmalloc(3MALLOC)
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