The memory fragmentation problem

Abstract

We show that for 8 real and varied C and C++ programs, several conventional dynamic storage allocators provide near-zero fragmentation, once we account for overheads due to implementation details such as headers, alignment, etc. This substantially strengthens our previous results showing that the memory fragmentation problem has generally been misunderstood, and that good allocator policies can provide good memory usage for most programs. The new results indicate that for most programs, excellent allocator policies are readily available, and efficiency of implementation is the major challenge. While we believe that our experimental results are state-of-the-art and our methodology is superior to most previous work, more work should be done to identify and study unusual problematic program behaviors not represented in our sample.