malloc options

[Karl Vogel]

>> On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 17:36:35 -0700,
>> Doug Hardie <bc979 at lafn.org> wrote:

D> The program has worked under considerable load for many years with versions
D> 3.7 to 6.2.  Problems only occur with 7.0.  The program is quite complex
D> and big.  It uses probably hundreds of mallocs in a typical use.  The
D> problems only occur reasonably randomly and only under quite heavy load.
D> The developer is looking into it, but the problem only occurs on FreeBSD
D> 7.0, not any other Unix systems.  In the meantime I am losing money because
D> of it.

>> On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 05:03:58 +0300,
>> Giorgos Keramidas <keramida at ceid.upatras.gr> said:

G> While that's understandable, the current malloc() has undergone quite
G> extensive testing by Jason Evans and a lot of people who use it in FreeBSD
G> 7.X or later.  Its ability to expose bugs in this way was deemed important
G> enough that it is now used by other projects too.

   I ran into a similar problem with the BSD allocator running under heavy
   load that didn't happen under any Solaris or Linux system I used.  I
   finally fixed it by using Doug Lea's malloc just for this one application:
     http://shell.siscom.net/~vogelke/Software/Languages/C/Libraries/malloc/

   This was under FreeBSD 6.*, but it might provide another data point if you
   want to give it a try.

-- 
Karl Vogel                      I don't speak for the USAF or my company
vogelke at pobox dot com                   http://www.pobox.com/~vogelke

And God said, "Let there be vodka!"  And saw that it was good.  Then God
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