[webkit-dev] WTF::fastMalloc

[Zoltan Horvath]

On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 3:52 PM, Geoffrey Garen <ggaren at apple.com> wrote:

> > So are you proposing to use the system allocator on Windows?
>
> I’m proposing a two step process:
>
> (1) Use the system allocator on Windows (and GTK).


> (2) If a port maintainer cares to optimize a given port, without too much
> disruption to mainline code, they may do so.
>
> FWIW, If I were conducting (2) for Windows, malloc would be pretty far
> down the list of things I started porting.
>
> > The current malloc logic has been the source of a number of mysterious
> crashes on Windows, so reverting to the system allocator might be a good
> thing for stability. I don’t know what the potential performance
> ramifications would be.
>
> Yes, I’ve heard that on other platforms as well.
>

This usually happens because the allocation/free mismatches. (In cases such
as memory allocated by TCmalloc via the FastMalloc interface (fastMalloc,
fastNewMalloc) and tried to be freed by the system free.)

I support (1).

I think for (2), it would be better if the port maintainers would just try
to support the core (the new) allocator if it's possible. It would be
better to have only 1 allocator and optionally the system allocator for
special cases.

Cheers,
<Zoltan>
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