Efficient implementation of the first-fit strategy for dynamic storage allocation

Abstract

We describe an algorithm that efficiently implements the first-fit strategy for dynamic storage allocation. The algorithm imposes a storage overhead of only one word per allocated block (plus a few percent of the total space used for dynamic storage), and the time required to allocate or free a block is O (log W ), where W is the maximum number of words allocated dynamically. The algorithm is faster than many commonly used algorithms, especially when many small blocks are allocated, and has good worst-case behavior. It is relatively easy to implement and could be used internally by an operating system or to provide run-time support for high-level languages such as Pascal and Ada. A Pascal implementation is given in the Appendix.