Add returns_nonnull to infallible allocators

From: "Tristan Partin" <tristan(at)partin(dot)io>
To: "pgsql-hackers" <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Add returns_nonnull to infallible allocators
Date: 2026-07-06 18:10:27
Message-ID: DJROV5LUO7B5.DIWXYC0101KD@partin.io
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Postgres memory allocators, by default, ERROR out on memory allocation
failures. An ERROR leads to a longjmp, which means that the caller of
the allocator will never see a NULL return value. We can explicitly let
the compiler know about this behavior by adding the returns_nonnull
attribute to the allocators that follow this behavior. Postgres does
support _extended versions of some of the allocators that take a flaks
argument. The caller can provide the MCXT_ALLOC_NO_OOM flag to these
allocators to request that they return NULL on allocation failure
instead of ERROR-ing out. The _extended allocators cannot be marked as
returns_nonnull because of that.

By using returns_nonnull, we can help the compiler to optimize call
sites.

--
Tristan Partin
PostgreSQL Contributors Team
AWS (https://aws.amazon.com)

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