Re: EXPERIMENTAL: mmap-based memory context / allocator

From: Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnakangas(at)vmware(dot)com>
To: Tomas Vondra <tomas(dot)vondra(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: EXPERIMENTAL: mmap-based memory context / allocator
Date: 2015-02-15 19:56:51
Message-ID: 54E0FA03.6010402@vmware.com
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On 02/15/2015 08:57 PM, Tomas Vondra wrote:
> One of the wilder ideas (I mentined beer was involved!) was a memory
> allocator based on mmap [2], bypassing the libc malloc implementation
> altogether. mmap() has some nice features (e.g. no issues with returning
> memory back to the kernel, which may be problem with sbrk). So I hacked
> a bit and switched the AllocSet implementation to mmap().

glibc's malloc() also uses mmap() for larger allocations. Precisely
because those allocations can then be handed back to the OS. I don't
think we'd want to use mmap() for small allocations either. Let's not
re-invent malloc()..

- Heikki

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