diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'src/lib/libc/stdlib/malloc.3')
| -rw-r--r-- | src/lib/libc/stdlib/malloc.3 | 350 |
1 files changed, 350 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/src/lib/libc/stdlib/malloc.3 b/src/lib/libc/stdlib/malloc.3 new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..d5f8837ec2 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/lib/libc/stdlib/malloc.3 | |||
| @@ -0,0 +1,350 @@ | |||
| 1 | .\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993 | ||
| 2 | .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. | ||
| 3 | .\" | ||
| 4 | .\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by | ||
| 5 | .\" the American National Standards Committee X3, on Information | ||
| 6 | .\" Processing Systems. | ||
| 7 | .\" | ||
| 8 | .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without | ||
| 9 | .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions | ||
| 10 | .\" are met: | ||
| 11 | .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright | ||
| 12 | .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. | ||
| 13 | .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright | ||
| 14 | .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the | ||
| 15 | .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. | ||
| 16 | .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software | ||
| 17 | .\" must display the following acknowledgement: | ||
| 18 | .\" This product includes software developed by the University of | ||
| 19 | .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. | ||
| 20 | .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors | ||
| 21 | .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software | ||
| 22 | .\" without specific prior written permission. | ||
| 23 | .\" | ||
| 24 | .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND | ||
| 25 | .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE | ||
| 26 | .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE | ||
| 27 | .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE | ||
| 28 | .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL | ||
| 29 | .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS | ||
| 30 | .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) | ||
| 31 | .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT | ||
| 32 | .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY | ||
| 33 | .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF | ||
| 34 | .\" SUCH DAMAGE. | ||
| 35 | .\" | ||
| 36 | .\" $OpenBSD: malloc.3,v 1.9 1998/08/15 20:32:02 deraadt Exp $ | ||
| 37 | .\" | ||
| 38 | .Dd August 27, 1996 | ||
| 39 | .Dt MALLOC 3 | ||
| 40 | .Os OpenBSD | ||
| 41 | .Sh NAME | ||
| 42 | .Nm malloc , | ||
| 43 | .Nd general memory allocation function | ||
| 44 | .Pp | ||
| 45 | .Nm free , | ||
| 46 | .Nm cfree | ||
| 47 | .Nd free up memory allocated with malloc, calloc or realloc | ||
| 48 | .Pp | ||
| 49 | .Nm realloc | ||
| 50 | .Nd reallocation of memory function | ||
| 51 | .Sh SYNOPSIS | ||
| 52 | .Fd #include <stdlib.h> | ||
| 53 | .Ft void * | ||
| 54 | .Fn malloc "size_t size" | ||
| 55 | .Ft void | ||
| 56 | .Fn free "void *ptr" | ||
| 57 | .Ft void | ||
| 58 | .Fn cfree "void *ptr" | ||
| 59 | .Ft void * | ||
| 60 | .Fn realloc "void *ptr" "size_t size" | ||
| 61 | .Ft char * | ||
| 62 | .Va malloc_options | ||
| 63 | .Sh DESCRIPTION | ||
| 64 | The | ||
| 65 | .Fn malloc | ||
| 66 | function allocates uninitialized space for an object whose | ||
| 67 | size is specified by | ||
| 68 | .Fa size . | ||
| 69 | The | ||
| 70 | .Fn malloc | ||
| 71 | function maintains multiple lists of free blocks according to size, allocating | ||
| 72 | space from the appropriate list. | ||
| 73 | .Pp | ||
| 74 | The allocated space is | ||
| 75 | suitably aligned (after possible pointer | ||
| 76 | coercion) for storage of any type of object. If the space is of | ||
| 77 | .Em pagesize | ||
| 78 | or larger, the memory returned will be page-aligned. | ||
| 79 | .Pp | ||
| 80 | Allocation of a zero size object returns a pointer to a zero size object. | ||
| 81 | .Pp | ||
| 82 | The | ||
| 83 | .Fn free | ||
| 84 | function causes the space pointed to by | ||
| 85 | .Fa ptr | ||
| 86 | to be deallocated, that is, at least made available for further allocation, | ||
| 87 | but if possible, it will passed back to the kernel with | ||
| 88 | .Xr sbrk 2 . | ||
| 89 | If | ||
| 90 | .Fa ptr | ||
| 91 | is a null pointer, no action occurs. | ||
| 92 | .Pp | ||
| 93 | A | ||
| 94 | .Fn cfree | ||
| 95 | function is also provided for compatibility with old systems and other | ||
| 96 | .Nm malloc | ||
| 97 | libraries; it is simply an alias for | ||
| 98 | .Fn free . | ||
| 99 | .Pp | ||
| 100 | The | ||
| 101 | .Fn realloc | ||
| 102 | function changes the size of the object pointed to by | ||
| 103 | .Fa ptr | ||
| 104 | to the size specified by | ||
| 105 | .Fa size . | ||
| 106 | The contents of the object are unchanged up to the lesser | ||
| 107 | of the new and old sizes. | ||
| 108 | If the new size is larger, the value of the newly allocated portion | ||
| 109 | of the object is indeterminate and uninitialized. | ||
| 110 | If | ||
| 111 | .Fa ptr | ||
| 112 | is a null pointer, the | ||
| 113 | .Fn realloc | ||
| 114 | function behaves like the | ||
| 115 | .Fn malloc | ||
| 116 | function for the specified size. | ||
| 117 | If the space cannot be allocated, the object | ||
| 118 | pointed to by | ||
| 119 | .Fa ptr | ||
| 120 | is unchanged. | ||
| 121 | If | ||
| 122 | .Fa size | ||
| 123 | is zero and | ||
| 124 | .Fa ptr | ||
| 125 | is not a null pointer, the object it points to is freed and a new zero size | ||
| 126 | object is returned. | ||
| 127 | .Pp | ||
| 128 | When using | ||
| 129 | .Fn realloc | ||
| 130 | one must be careful to avoid the following idiom: | ||
| 131 | .Pp | ||
| 132 | .Bd -literal -offset indent | ||
| 133 | if ((p = realloc(p, nsize)) == NULL) | ||
| 134 | return NULL; | ||
| 135 | .Ed | ||
| 136 | .Pp | ||
| 137 | In most cases, this will result in a leak of memory. | ||
| 138 | As stated earlier, a return value of | ||
| 139 | .Fa NULL | ||
| 140 | indicates that the old object still remains allocated. | ||
| 141 | Better code looks like this: | ||
| 142 | .Bd -literal -offset indent | ||
| 143 | if ((p2 = realloc(p, nsize)) == NULL) { | ||
| 144 | if (p) | ||
| 145 | free(p); | ||
| 146 | p = NULL; | ||
| 147 | return NULL; | ||
| 148 | } | ||
| 149 | p = p2; | ||
| 150 | .Ed | ||
| 151 | .Pp | ||
| 152 | Malloc will first look for a symbolic link called | ||
| 153 | .Pa /etc/malloc.conf | ||
| 154 | and next check the environment for a variable called | ||
| 155 | .Ev MALLOC_OPTIONS | ||
| 156 | and finally for the global variable | ||
| 157 | .Va malloc_options | ||
| 158 | and scan them for flags in that order. | ||
| 159 | Flags are single letters, uppercase means on, lowercase means off. | ||
| 160 | .Bl -tag -width indent | ||
| 161 | .It A | ||
| 162 | ``abort'' malloc will coredump the process, rather than tolerate failure. | ||
| 163 | This is a very handy debugging aid, since the core file will represent the | ||
| 164 | time of failure, | ||
| 165 | rather than when the NULL pointer was accessed. | ||
| 166 | |||
| 167 | .It D | ||
| 168 | ``dump'' malloc will dump statistics in a file called ``malloc.out'' at exit. | ||
| 169 | This option requires the library to have been compiled with -DMALLOC_STATS in | ||
| 170 | order to have any effect. | ||
| 171 | |||
| 172 | .It J | ||
| 173 | ``junk'' fill some junk into the area allocated. | ||
| 174 | Currently junk is bytes of 0xd0, this is pronounced ``Duh'' :-) | ||
| 175 | |||
| 176 | .It H | ||
| 177 | ``hint'' pass a hint to the kernel about pages we don't use. If the | ||
| 178 | machine is paging a lot this may help a bit. | ||
| 179 | |||
| 180 | .It N | ||
| 181 | Do not output warning messages when encountering possible corruption | ||
| 182 | or bad pointers. | ||
| 183 | |||
| 184 | .It R | ||
| 185 | ``realloc'' always reallocate when | ||
| 186 | .Fn realloc | ||
| 187 | is called, even if the initial allocation was big enough. | ||
| 188 | This can substantially aid in compacting memory. | ||
| 189 | |||
| 190 | .It U | ||
| 191 | ``utrace'' generate entries for | ||
| 192 | .Xr ktrace 1 | ||
| 193 | for all operations. | ||
| 194 | Consult the source for this one. | ||
| 195 | |||
| 196 | .It X | ||
| 197 | ``xmalloc'' | ||
| 198 | rather than return failure, | ||
| 199 | .Xr abort 3 | ||
| 200 | the program with a diagnostic message on stderr. | ||
| 201 | It is the intention that this option be set at compile time by | ||
| 202 | including in the source: | ||
| 203 | .Bd -literal -offset indent | ||
| 204 | extern char *malloc_options; | ||
| 205 | malloc_options = "X"; | ||
| 206 | .Ed | ||
| 207 | |||
| 208 | .It Z | ||
| 209 | ``zero'' fill some junk into the area allocated (see ``J''), | ||
| 210 | except for the exact length the user asked for, which is zeroed. | ||
| 211 | |||
| 212 | .It < | ||
| 213 | ``Half the cache size'' Reduce the size of the cache by a factor of two. | ||
| 214 | |||
| 215 | .It > | ||
| 216 | ``Double the cache size'' Double the size of the cache by a factor of two. | ||
| 217 | .El | ||
| 218 | .Pp | ||
| 219 | So to set a systemwide reduction of cache size and coredumps on problems | ||
| 220 | one would: | ||
| 221 | .Li ln -s 'A<' /etc/malloc.conf | ||
| 222 | .Pp | ||
| 223 | The ``J'' and ``Z'' is mostly for testing and debugging, | ||
| 224 | if a program changes behavior if either of these options are used, | ||
| 225 | it is buggy. | ||
| 226 | .Pp | ||
| 227 | The default cache size is 16 pages. | ||
| 228 | .Sh ENVIRONMENT | ||
| 229 | See above. | ||
| 230 | .Sh RETURN VALUES | ||
| 231 | The | ||
| 232 | .Fn malloc | ||
| 233 | function returns | ||
| 234 | a pointer to the allocated space if successful; otherwise | ||
| 235 | a null pointer is returned. | ||
| 236 | .Pp | ||
| 237 | The | ||
| 238 | .Fn free | ||
| 239 | function returns no value. | ||
| 240 | .Pp | ||
| 241 | The | ||
| 242 | .Fn realloc | ||
| 243 | function a pointer to the possibly moved allocated space; | ||
| 244 | otherwise a null pointer is returned. | ||
| 245 | .Sh MESSAGES | ||
| 246 | If | ||
| 247 | .Fn malloc , | ||
| 248 | .Fn free | ||
| 249 | or | ||
| 250 | .Fn realloc | ||
| 251 | detects an error or warning condition, | ||
| 252 | a message will be printed to filedescriptor | ||
| 253 | 2 (not using stdio). | ||
| 254 | Errors will always result in the process being | ||
| 255 | .Xr abort 2 'ed, | ||
| 256 | If the ``A'' option has been specified, also warnings will | ||
| 257 | .Xr abort 2 | ||
| 258 | the process. | ||
| 259 | .Pp | ||
| 260 | Here is a brief description of the error messages and what they mean: | ||
| 261 | .Pp | ||
| 262 | ``(ES): mumble mumble mumble'': | ||
| 263 | malloc have been compiled with -DEXTRA_SANITY and something looks | ||
| 264 | fishy in there. Consult sources and or wizards. | ||
| 265 | .Pp | ||
| 266 | ``allocation failed'' | ||
| 267 | if the ``A'' option is specified it is an error for | ||
| 268 | .Fn malloc | ||
| 269 | or | ||
| 270 | .Fn realloc | ||
| 271 | to return NULL. | ||
| 272 | .Pp | ||
| 273 | ``mmap(2) failed, check limits.'' | ||
| 274 | This is a rather weird condition that is most likely to mean that | ||
| 275 | the system is seriously overloaded or that your ulimits are sick. | ||
| 276 | .Pp | ||
| 277 | ``freelist is destroyed.'' | ||
| 278 | mallocs internal freelist has been stomped on. | ||
| 279 | .Pp | ||
| 280 | Here is a brief description of the warning messages and what they mean: | ||
| 281 | .Pp | ||
| 282 | ``chunk/page is already free.'' | ||
| 283 | A pointer to a free chunk is attempted freed again. | ||
| 284 | .Pp | ||
| 285 | ``junk pointer, too high to make sense.'' | ||
| 286 | The pointer doesn't make sense. It's above the area of memory that | ||
| 287 | malloc knows something about. | ||
| 288 | This could be a pointer from some | ||
| 289 | .Xr mmap 2 'ed | ||
| 290 | memory. | ||
| 291 | .Pp | ||
| 292 | ``junk pointer, too low to make sense.'' | ||
| 293 | The pointer doesn't make sense. It's below the area of memory that | ||
| 294 | malloc knows something about. | ||
| 295 | This pointer probably came from your data or bss segments. | ||
| 296 | .Pp | ||
| 297 | ``malloc() has never been called.'' | ||
| 298 | Nothing has ever been allocated, yet something is being freed or | ||
| 299 | realloc'ed. | ||
| 300 | .Pp | ||
| 301 | ``modified (chunk-/page-) pointer.'' | ||
| 302 | The pointer passed to free or realloc has been modified. | ||
| 303 | .Pp | ||
| 304 | ``pointer to wrong page.'' | ||
| 305 | The pointer that malloc is trying to free is not pointing to | ||
| 306 | a sensible page. | ||
| 307 | .Pp | ||
| 308 | ``recursive call.'' | ||
| 309 | You have tried to call recursively into these functions. | ||
| 310 | I can only imagine this as happening if you call one of these | ||
| 311 | functions from a signal function, which happens to be called | ||
| 312 | while you're already in here. | ||
| 313 | Well, sorry to say: that's not supported. | ||
| 314 | If this is a problem for you I'd like to hear about it. It | ||
| 315 | would be possible to add a sigblock() around this package, | ||
| 316 | but it would have a performance penalty that is not acceptable | ||
| 317 | as the default. | ||
| 318 | .Pp | ||
| 319 | ``unknown char in MALLOC_OPTIONS'' | ||
| 320 | we found something we didn't understand. | ||
| 321 | .Sh SEE ALSO | ||
| 322 | .Xr brk 2 , | ||
| 323 | .Xr alloca 3 , | ||
| 324 | .Xr calloc 3 , | ||
| 325 | .Xr getpagesize 3 , | ||
| 326 | .Xr memory 3 | ||
| 327 | .Pa /usr/share/doc/papers/malloc.ascii.gz | ||
| 328 | .Sh STANDARDS | ||
| 329 | The | ||
| 330 | .Fn malloc | ||
| 331 | function conforms to | ||
| 332 | .St -ansiC . | ||
| 333 | .Sh HISTORY | ||
| 334 | The present implementation of malloc started out as a filesystem on a drum | ||
| 335 | attached to a 20bit binary challenged computer built with discrete germanium | ||
| 336 | transistors, and it has since graduated to handle primary storage rather than | ||
| 337 | secondary. | ||
| 338 | .Pp | ||
| 339 | The main difference from other malloc implementations are believed to be that | ||
| 340 | the free pages are not accessed until allocated. | ||
| 341 | Most malloc implementations will store a data structure containing a, | ||
| 342 | possibly double-, linked list in the free chunks of memory, used to tie | ||
| 343 | all the free memory together. | ||
| 344 | That is a quite suboptimal thing to do. | ||
| 345 | Every time the free-list is traversed, all the otherwise unused, and very | ||
| 346 | likely paged out, pages get faulted into primary memory, just to see what | ||
| 347 | lies after them in the list. | ||
| 348 | .Pp | ||
| 349 | On systems which are paging, this can make a factor five in difference on the | ||
| 350 | page-faults of a process. | ||
