2021/3/15 SFU CMPT 300 - Assignment 3
https://systems.cs.sfu.ca/cmpt300/spring21/assignments/a3/a3.html 1/5
CMPT 300 Assignment 3: Memory Management
Total marks: 100
Overall percentage: 15%
Due: Apr 1 (10am Pacic)
This assignment may be completed idividually or in a group (up to three people).
1. Overview
In this assignment you will implement a multi-threaded memory allocator that uses some memory
management techniques that were discussed in class. You solution should be based on the provided
sample code.
Note: As usual, all code must be written in C and run on a Linux machine. We will grade your code on
a Linux machine. You should create a directory for this assignment, such as ~/cmpt300/a3/ and put
all les related to this assignment in it.
2. Allocator Design
2.1 Initialization
The allocator needs to know the total size of memory assumed in this project and the memory
allocation algorithm to be used. This information will be supplied by the following API:
void initialize_allocator(int size, enum allocation_algorithm);
In the above function, size indicates the contiguous memory chunk size that is assumed for the rest
of the program. Any requests for allocation and deallocation requests (see point 2) will be served
from this contiguous chunk. You must allocate the memory chunk using malloc and have the
memory chunk pre-faulted and its content initialized to 0; you can do this using memset. The
allocation_algorithm parameter is an enum (as shown below) which will determine the algorithm
used for allocation in the rest of the program:
enum allocation_algorithm { FIRST_FIT, BEST_FIT, WORST_FIT };
FIRST_FIT satises the allocation request from the rst available memory block (from left) that is at
least as large as the requested size. BEST_FIT satises the allocation request from the available
memory block that at least as large as the requested size and that results in the smallest remainder
fragment. WORST_FIT satises the allocation request from the available memory block that at least
as large as the requested size and that results in the largest remainder fragment.
2.2 Allocation/deallocation interfaces
The allocation and deallocation requests will be similar to malloc and free calls in C, except that
they are called allocate and deallocate with the following signatures:
2021/3/15 SFU CMPT 300 - Assignment 3
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void *allocate(int size);
void deallocate(void *ptr);
As expected, allocate returns a pointer to the allocated block of size size and deallocate takes a
pointer to a chunk of memory as the sole parameter and return it back to the allocator. If allocation
cannot be satised, allocate returns NULL. Hence, the calling program should look like:
int* p = (int*)allocate(sizeof(int));
if (p != NULL) {
// do_some_work(p);
deallocate(p);
}
2.3 Metadata Management
You should maintain the size of allocated memory block within the block itself, as described here
(slide 11). The "header" should only contain a single 8-byte word that denotes the size of the actual
allocation (i.e., 8-byte + requested allocation size). For example, if the request asks for 16 bytes of
memory, you should actually allocate 8 + 16 bytes, and use the rst 8-byte to store the size of the
total allocation (24 bytes) and return a pointer to the user-visible 16-byte.
To manage free/allocated space, you should maintain two separate singly linked lists, one for
allocated blocks, and the other for free blocks. When a block gets allocated (using allocate), its
metadata (i.e., a pointer to the allocation) must be inserted to the list of allocated blocks. Similarly
when a block gets freed (using deallocate), its metadata must be inserted to the list of free blocks.
Note that each linked list node should only contain a pointer to the allocated memory block and a
pointer to the next node in the list, because size of the allocation is already recorded with the
memory block itself (previous point). The free list must never maintain contiguous free blocks (as
shown in Figure 1), i.e., if two blocks, one of size m and other of size n, are consecutive in the
memory chunk, they must become a combined block of size m + n (as shown in Figure 2). This
combination must happen when deallocate is called.
Figure 1: Each block is labeled with its size. White indicates free block while allocated blocks are
colored.
Figure 2: Example with contiguous free blocks. This should never occur as contiguous free blocks
should be merged immediately (as shown in Figure 1).
2.4 Compaction
2021/3/15 SFU CMPT 300 - Assignment 3
https://systems.cs.sfu.ca/cmpt300/spring21/assignments/a3/a3.html 3/5
Since contiguous allocation results in fragmentation, the allocator must support a compaction API
as shown below:
int compact_allocation(void** _before, void** _after);
Compaction will be performed by grouping the allocated memory blocks in the beginning of the
memory chunk and combining the free memory at the end of the memory chunk (as shown in Figure
3). This process will require you to manipulate the allocated and free metadata lists. The process of
compaction must be in-place, which means that you must not declare extra memory chunk to
perform compaction. This can be done by going through the allocated list in sorted address order
(relative to the base memory address, allocated during initialization), and copy contents of allocated
blocks gradually (piece by piece) to the free space on its "left".
Figure 3: Result of compaction on memory chunk shown in Figure 1
As compaction relocates data, all the pointer addresses in the driver program must also be updated.
Hence, the API accepts _before and _after arrays of void* pointers (hence they are void**). The
relocation logic will insert the previous address and new address of each relocated block in _before
and _after. You can assume that _before and _after arrays supplied by the driver program are
large enough (i.e., you don't need to worry about allocation of these two arrays). The return value is
an integer which is the total number of pointers inserted in the _before/_after array. This way, the
calling program can perform pointer adjustment like this:
void* before[100];
void* after[100]; // in this example, total pointers is less than 100
int count = compact_allocation(before, after);
for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i) {
// Update pointers
}
2.5 Statistics
Information about the current state of memory can be found by the following API:
void print_statistics();
int available_memory();
print_statistics() prints the detailed statistics as shown below ( is a number):
Allocated size =
Allocated chunks =
Free size =
Free chunks =
Largest free chunk size =
Smallest free chunk size =
2021/3/15 SFU CMPT 300 - Assignment 3
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available_memory() returns the available memory size (same as Free size in print_statistics())
2.6 Multi-threading support
Your allocator must support multi-threading, i.e., it must correct allocate, deallocate, and do
compaction even with mutliple concurrent threads.
You may follow the simple design that uses a global pthread_mutex to protect the entire allocator.
That is, all the previous mentioned functions (except initialization), must rst acquire the mutex
before continuing to do its work, and must release the mutex before returning. You are also free to
devise your own synchronization mechanism; as long as your allocator can support multi-threading,
you will get the marks in this part.
2.7 Uninitialization
In order to avoid memory leaks after using your contiguous allocator, you need to implement a
function that will release any dynamically allocated memory in your contiguous allocator.
void destroy_allocator();
You can assume that the destroy_allocator() will always be the last function call of main
function in the test cases. And similar to previous projects, valgrind will be used to detect memory
leaks and memory errors.
Hint: You can use your own linked list solution or the provided solution set from Assignment 1.
4. Submission
You need to submit a compressed archive named a3.tar.gz to CourSys that includes your modied
version of the sample code (including main.c, myalloc.c, myalloc.h, and Makele). We will build your
code using your Makele, and then run it using the command: ./myalloc. You may add more .c/.h le
in your solution, and your Makele must correctly build your solution. Please remember that all
submissions will automatically be compared for unexplainable similarities.
Following the steps below to prepare your submission:
Make sure that your les are stored in a directory as called a3
Change to each of your folders and issue the command make clean. This will remove all object
les as well as all output and temporary les
Change to your a3 folder:
$ cd ~/cmpt300/a3
Then, issue:
$ tar cvf a3.tar *
which creates a tar ball (i.e., a single le) that contains the contents of the folder.
Compress your le using gzip:
2021/3/15 SFU CMPT 300 - Assignment 3
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$ gzip a3.tar
Submit via CourSys by the deadline posted there.
Grading Policies
Make sure you are familiar with the course policies. Especially, we do not accept late submissions,
so please submit on time by the deadline. Your code must compile and run on Linux; you will receive
a 0 mark if your code does not compile. Sample solutions will not be provided for assignments. Your
code should also not leak any memory; we will check using Valgrind. Any memory leak will lead to 10
marks overall deduction. We will test your code using more complex and hidden test cases, so you
are encouraged to vary as many parameters as possible to test your code.
*Created by Mohamed Hefeeda, modied by 436 Brian Fraser, Keval Vora and Tianzheng Wang.
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