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https://github.com/emeryberger/heap-layers

Heap Layers: An Extensible Memory Allocation Infrastructure
https://github.com/emeryberger/heap-layers

malloc memory-allocation memory-management memory-manager

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Heap Layers: An Extensible Memory Allocation Infrastructure

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README 

        
[Heap Layers: An Extensible Memory Allocation Infrastructure](http://www.heaplayers.org)

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Copyright (C) 2000 - 2021 by [Emery Berger](http://www.emeryberger.com)



Heap Layers is distributed under the terms of the Apache 2.0 license.



## Introduction ##



Heap Layers provides a flexible infrastructure for composing

high-performance memory allocators out of C++ _layers_. Heap Layers

makes it easy to write high-quality custom and general-purpose

memory allocators. Heap Layers has been used successfully to build

a number of high-performance allocators, including [Hoard](http://www.hoard.org) and [DieHard](http://www.diehard-software.org/).



## Using Heap Layers ##



For an introduction to Heap Layers, read the article [Policy-Based

Memory Allocation](https://github.com/emeryberger/Heap-Layers/raw/master/cuj-2005-12.pdf), by Andrei

Alexandrescu and Emery Berger. It's a good overview. See also ["Memory Allocation: Either Love It or Hate It

(or just think it’s okay)"](https://accu.org/content/conf2008/Alexandrescu-memory-allocation.screen.pdf), a talk by Andrei.



Heap Layers contains a number of ready-made heap components that can

be plugged together with minimal effort, and the result is often

faster than hand-built allocators. The PLDI 2001 paper [Composing

High-Performance Memory

Allocators](http://www.cs.umass.edu/~emery/pubs/berger-pldi2001.pdf)

has plenty of examples.



## Performance ##



Heap Layers can substantially outperform its only real competitor,

the Vmalloc package from AT&T. The OOPSLA 2002 paper [Reconsidering

Custom Memory

Allocation](http://www.cs.umass.edu/~emery/pubs/berger-oopsla2002.pdf)

paper has more details.



Not only is Heap Layers much higher level and simpler to use, but

its use of templates also improves performance. Heap Layers both

eliminates the function call overhead imposed by Vmalloc layers and

yields higher quality code by exposing more optimization

opportunities.



## Citation ##



To reference Heap Layers in an academic paper, please cite as follows:



```

@inproceedings{DBLP:conf/pldi/BergerZM01,

  author    = {Emery D. Berger and

               Benjamin G. Zorn and

               Kathryn S. McKinley},

  title     = {Composing High-Performance Memory Allocators},

  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2001 {ACM} {SIGPLAN} Conference on Programming

               Language Design and Implementation (PLDI), Snowbird, Utah, USA, June

               20-22, 2001},

  pages     = {114--124},

  year      = {2001},

  crossref  = {DBLP:conf/pldi/2001},

  url       = {https://doi.org/10.1145/378795.378821},

  doi       = {10.1145/378795.378821},

  timestamp = {Wed, 14 Nov 2018 10:54:59 +0100},

  biburl    = {https://dblp.org/rec/bib/conf/pldi/BergerZM01},

  bibsource = {dblp computer science bibliography, https://dblp.org}

}



@proceedings{DBLP:conf/pldi/2001,

  editor    = {Michael Burke and

               Mary Lou Soffa},

  title     = {Proceedings of the 2001 {ACM} {SIGPLAN} Conference on Programming

               Language Design and Implementation (PLDI), Snowbird, Utah, USA, June

               20-22, 2001},

  publisher = {{ACM}},

  year      = {2001},

  url       = {http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=378795},

  isbn      = {1-58113-414-2},

  timestamp = {Mon, 21 May 2012 16:19:53 +0200},

  biburl    = {https://dblp.org/rec/bib/conf/pldi/2001},

  bibsource = {dblp computer science bibliography, https://dblp.org}

}

```