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POOL(2)                       System Calls Manual                      POOL(2)



NAME
       poolalloc,  poolallocalign,  poolfree, poolmsize, poolrealloc, poolcom‐
       pact, poolcheck, poolblockcheck, pooldump - general  memory  management
       routines

SYNOPSIS
       #include <u.h>
       #include <libc.h>
       #include <pool.h>

       void*     poolalloc(Pool* pool, ulong size)

       void*     poolallocalign(Pool *pool, ulong size,
                       ulong align, long offset, ulong span)

       void poolfree(Pool* pool, void* ptr)

       ulong     poolmsize(Pool* pool, void* ptr)

       void*     poolrealloc(Pool* pool, void* ptr, ulong size)

       void poolcompact(Pool* pool)

       void poolcheck(Pool *pool)

       void poolblockcheck(Pool *pool, void *ptr)

       void pooldump(Pool *pool);

DESCRIPTION
       These routines provide a general memory management facility.  Memory is
       retrieved from a coarser allocator (e.g.  sbrk or the kernel's  xalloc)
       and  then  allocated  to callers.  The routines are locked and thus may
       safely be used in multiprocess programs.

       Poolalloc attempts to allocate a block  of  size  size;  it  returns  a
       pointer  to  the  block  when  successful  and nil otherwise.  The call
       poolalloc(0) returns a non-nil pointer.  Poolfree returns an  allocated
       block to the pool.  It is an error to free a block more than once or to
       free a pointer not returned by poolalloc.  The  call  poolfree(nil)  is
       legal and is a no-op.

       Poolallocalign attempts to allocate a block of size size with the given
       alignment constraints.  If align is non-zero, the returned  pointer  is
       aligned to be equal to offset modulo align.  If span is non-zero, the n
       byte block allocated will not span a span-byte boundary.

       Poolrealloc attempts to resize to nsize bytes the block associated with
       ptr, which must have been previously returned by poolalloc or poolreal‐
       loc.  If the block's size  can  be  adjusted,  a  (possibly  different)
       pointer to the new block is returned.  The contents up to the lesser of
       the old and new sizes are unchanged.  After a successful call to  pool‐
       realloc,  the return value should be used rather than ptr to access the
       block.  If the request cannot be satisfied,  poolrealloc  returns  nil,
       and the old pointer remains valid.

       When  blocks are allocated, there is often some extra space left at the
       end that would usually go unused.  Poolmsize grows the block to  encom‐
       pass this extra space and returns the new size.

       The  poolblockcheck  and poolcheck routines validate a single allocated
       block or the entire pool, respectively.  They call panic (see below) if
       corruption is detected.  Pooldump prints a summary line for every block
       in the pool, using the print function (see below).

       The Pool structure itself provides much of the setup interface.

              typedef struct Pool Pool;
              struct Pool {
                  char* name;
                  uintptr             maxsize;/* of entire Pool */
                  uintptr             cursize;/* of Pool */
                  uintptr             curfree;/* total free bytes in Pool */
                  uintptr             curalloc;/* total allocated bytes in Pool */
                  ulong minarena;     /* smallest size of new arena */
                  ulong quantum;      /* allocated blocks should be multiple of */
                  ulong minblock;     /* smallest newly allocated block */
                  int   flags;
                  int   nfree;        /* number of calls to free */
                  int   lastcompact;  /* nfree at time of last poolcompact */
                  void* (*alloc)(ulong);
                  int   (*merge)(void*, void*);
                  void  (*move)(void* from, void* to);
                  void  (*lock)(Pool*);
                  void  (*unlock)(Pool*);
                  void  (*print)(Pool*, char*, ...);
                  void  (*panic)(Pool*, char*, ...);
                  void  (*logstack)(Pool*);
                  void* private;
              };
              enum {  /* flags */
                  POOL_ANTAGONISM = 1<<0,
                  POOL_PARANOIA   = 1<<1,
                  POOL_VERBOSITY  = 1<<2,
                  POOL_DEBUGGING  = 1<<3,
                  POOL_LOGGING    = 1<<4,
                  POOL_TOLERANCE  = 1<<5,
                  POOL_NOREUSE    = 1<<6,
              };

       The pool obtains arenas of memory to manage by calling the given  alloc
       routine.   The total number of requested bytes will not exceed maxsize.
       Each allocation request will be for at least minarena bytes.

       When a new arena is allocated, the pool routines try to merge  it  with
       the  surrounding  arenas,  in  an  attempt to combat fragmentation.  If
       merge is non-nil, it is called with the addresses of  two  blocks  from
       alloc  that  the  pool routines suspect might be adjacent.  If they are
       not mergeable, merge must return zero.  If they  are  mergeable,  merge
       should merge them into one block in its own bookkeeping and return non-
       zero.

       To ease fragmentation and make block reuse easier, the sizes  requested
       of the pool routines are rounded up to a multiple of quantum before the
       carrying out requests.  If, after rounding, the  block  size  is  still
       less than minblock bytes, minblock will be used as the block size.

       Poolcompact  defragments  the pool, moving blocks in order to aggregate
       the free space.  Each time it moves a block, it notifies the move  rou‐
       tine  that  the  contents have moved.  At the time that move is called,
       the contents have already moved, so from should never be  dereferenced.
       If  no move routine is supplied (i.e. it is nil), then calling poolcom‐
       pact is a no-op.

       When the pool routines need to allocate a new arena but cannot,  either
       because  alloc has returned nil or because doing so would use more than
       maxsize bytes, poolcompact is called once to defragment the memory  and
       the request is retried.

       Pools  are  protected  by the pool routines calling lock (when non-nil)
       before modifying the pool, and calling unlock when finished.

       When internal corruption is detected, panic is called with  a  print(2)
       style  argument that specifies what happened.  It is assumed that panic
       never returns.  When the pool routines wish to convey a message to  the
       caller  (usually  because  logging  is  turned on; see below), print is
       called, also with a print(2) style argument.

       Flags is a bit vector that tweaks the behavior of the pool routines  in
       various  ways.   Most  are  useful for debugging in one way or another.
       When POOL_ANTAGONISM is  set,  poolalloc  fills  blocks  with  non-zero
       garbage  before  releasing  them  to  the  user, and poolfree fills the
       blocks on receipt.  This tickles both user programs and the innards  of
       the  allocator.  Specifically, each 32-bit word of the memory is marked
       with a pointer value exclusive-or'ed  with  a  constant.   The  pointer
       value  is  the  pointer to the beginning of the allocated block and the
       constant varies in order  to  distinguish  different  markings.   Freed
       blocks  use the constant 0xF7000000, newly allocated blocks 0xF9000000,
       and newly created  unallocated  blocks  0xF1000000.   For  example,  if
       POOL_ANTAGONISM  is  set  and  poolalloc  returns  a  block starting at
       0x00012345, each word of the block will contain the value  0xF90012345.
       Recognizing  these  numbers in memory-related crashes can help diagnose
       things like double-frees or dangling pointers.

       Setting POOL_PARANOIA causes the allocator  to  walk  the  entire  pool
       whenever  locking  or  unlocking  itself, looking for corruption.  This
       slows runtime by a few orders of magnitude when many blocks are in use.
       If  POOL_VERBOSITY  is  set,  the entire pool structure is printed (via
       print) each time the pool is locked or  unlocked.   POOL_DEBUGGING  en‐
       ables  internal  debugging  output,  whose  format  is  unspecified and
       volatile.  It should not be used by most programs.   When  POOL_LOGGING
       is  set, a single line is printed via print at the beginning and end of
       each pool call.  If logstack is not nil, it will  be  called  as  well.
       This  provides  a  mechanism for external programs to search for leaks.
       (See leak(1) for one such program.)

       The pool routines are strict about the amount of space callers use.  If
       even  a  single byte is written past the end of the allotted space of a
       block, they will notice when that block is next used in a call to pool‐
       realloc  or  free  (or  at  the  next  entry  into  the allocator, when
       POOL_PARANOIA is set), and panic will be called.  Since  forgetting  to
       allocate  space for the terminating NUL on strings is such a common er‐
       ror, if POOL_TOLERANCE is set and a single NUL is  found  written  past
       the end of a block, print will be called with a notification, but panic
       will not be.

       When POOL_NOREUSE is set, poolfree fills the passed block with  garbage
       rather than return it to the free pool.

SOURCE
       /sys/src/libc/port/pool.c

SEE ALSO
       malloc(2), brk(2)

       /sys/src/libc/port/malloc.c is a complete example.



                                                                       POOL(2)