Memory Methods

Memory Hardware

PIC embedded controller memory methods

SX embedded controller memory methods

Dynamic memory management works, and much better than generally believed.

Potential problems:

• Long lived objects: If the allocator could allocate a block only in a very awkward position and then the block stays for a long time, it might prevent defragmenation of the two neighbouring free blocks. Therefore you should allocate and deallocate blocks frequently in order to give the defrag mechanism many chances to work.
• Lots of small objects: Memory management needs to implement some data structures on the free blocks. Therefore the free blocks need a certain minimum size (usually at least three adresses must fit in). Therefore, if you request a byte, you mivht get in fact twelve or more. However, some allocation mechanisms treat byte or word requests specially (with other drawbacks of course).

See also:

• Randy Hyde's UCR Standard Library
  • Memory
• There is a nice paper on memory deframentation from utexas:
• techniques of memory allocation: from utexas or harlequin
• Memory Allocation in Embedded Systems - C sample Code
• ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/hb/hbaker/
• http://www.xanalys.com/software_tools/mm/
• ftp://ftp.dcs.gla.ac.uk/pub/drastic/gc/all-papers.tar.gz
• http://www.iecc.com/gclist/GC-faq.html

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