houssemlahmar / memory_allocator

This project is a simple memory allocator implemented in C, providing dynamic memory allocation and deallocation functionalities such as `malloc()`, `free()`, `calloc()`, and `realloc()`. It utilizes a linked list data structure and the `sbrk()` system call for memory management, ensuring thread safety through basic locking mechanisms.

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Simple Memory Allocator

This is a simple memory allocator implementation in C.

Overview

This memory allocator provides basic implementations of malloc(), free(), calloc(), and realloc() functions. It manages memory allocation using a linked list structure and the sbrk() system call to manipulate the program break.

Features

• Dynamic Memory Allocation: Allocate and deallocate memory dynamically at runtime.
• Thread Safety: Basic locking mechanism ensures thread safety during memory allocation and deallocation.
• Header Management: Each allocated memory block is preceded by a header containing metadata such as size and free status.
• Alignment: Memory blocks are aligned to 16-byte boundaries for better performance.

Usage

To use the memory allocator in your project, include the memallocator.h header file and link against the memallocator.c source file.

Example usage:

#include "memallocator.h"
#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    // Allocate memory
    int *ptr = (int *)malloc(sizeof(int));
    if (ptr == NULL) {
        fprintf(stderr, "Memory allocation failed\n");
        return 1;
    }

    // Use allocated memory
    *ptr = 42;
    printf("Value: %d\n", *ptr);

    // Free allocated memory
    free(ptr);

    return 0;
}

Building

To compile the memory allocator as a shared library, you can use the following command:

gcc -o libmemalloc.so -fPIC -shared memallocator.c -pthread

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