Dynamic storage allocation: A survey and critical review

Abst rac t. Dynamic memory allocation has been a fundamental part of most computer systems ince roughly 1960, and memory allocation is widely considered to be either a solved problem or an insoluble one. In this survey, we describe a variety of memory allocator designs and point out issues relevant o their design and evaluation. We then chronologi-cally survey most of the literature on allocators between 1961 and 1995. (Scores of papers are discussed, in varying detail, and over 150 references are given.) We argue that allocator designs have been unduly restricted by an em-phasis on mechanism, rather than policy, while the latter is more impor-tant; higher-level strategic ssues are still more important, but have not been given much attention. Most theoretical analyses and empirical allocator evaluations to date have relied on very strong assumptions of randomness and independence, but real program behavior exhibits important regularities that must b