Re: [GD-Linux] Reinitializing the heap

[J C L. <cl...@ka...>]

On Tue, 27 Nov 2001 13:20:39 -0800 
Josh Adams <ja...@se...> wrote:

> Hey all, Is it possible to reinitialize the standard libc malloc
> heap during runtime?  I would rather do this than try to make sure
> every last bit of memory is cleaned up (it's a game after all).

Not portably/reliably, well, not without just dropping your current
context via something like an exec() which does the right VM things.
If you can show your context out in a shm block this can work fairly
nicely (you get recycled file handles, IPC structures etc as well
which can be useful).

> I'm looking for anything from an externed function I can call
> (like __malloc_init) or getting the 'top' of the heap and setting
> it to 0 or something like that.

The easiest way to get this behaviour would be to write a local
allocator which offered those semantics.  I did this at one point
with a head implementation that allowed watermarking.  Basically you
could make watermarks at various times, and then free all
still-valid allocations back to the named watermark (yeah, single
threaded with linear process flows).

-- 
J C Lawrence
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
cl...@ka...               He lived as a devil, eh?
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.