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Where are some good resources for looking at the pros/cons of different ways of implementing heap allocators? Resources touching on efficiency (fragmentation, throughput, etc) are preferred. I am NOT looking for simple code repositories.

edit:

I'm not really interested in the philosophical grounding of this wiki. As such, I don't really want to get into 'why' I'm interested in this. Regardless of the underlying intentions/problems/etc, this information exists, so if you know of any good resources, please link to them here!

Tony Stark
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This is a very old problem, and to get a comprehensive view you will have to dig through the research literature. (I'm not aware of a good textbook treatment.)

A few places to start:

This one is worth spending a day in the library. Yes, a big building full of paper—the problem is that old.

Norman Ramsey
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  • how well respected is doug lea's implementation? with the user of header and footer blocks for size of used blocks, and further pointer information for free blocks? has this strategy resulted in a good balance between fragmentation and time to service requests? – Tony Stark Jun 01 '10 at 02:26
  • also, is the first version of "The Art of Programming" available free on that website? i can't find a copy. – Tony Stark Jun 01 '10 at 02:28
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    @hatorade: Knuth is worth buying. – Jonathan Leffler Jun 01 '10 at 02:50
  • @hatorade: Lea's allocator is *highly* respected, and Don isn't likely to give away his life's work for free. He's retired from Stanford and book royalties are his income. – Norman Ramsey Jun 01 '10 at 14:17