Microport and SCO Xenix Memory Managment Problems

[Tony Andrews]

>From Tim Smith       sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim
> sbrk has to behave funny because of program that assume a linear
> address space.  Many program that want N bytes do the following:
> 
> 		char * ptr;
> 		ptr = sbrk(0);
> 		brk(ptr+N);
> 
> To make these work correctly, sbrk(0) has to return the start of
> the next segment.

Unfortunately, malloc wasn't fixed to properly deal with the
screwy behavior of brk and sbrk. For small malloc requests,
malloc asks for a 1K chunk and allocates from that. Each time it
decides to grab another 1K it gets it from a NEW segment. The
net effect is that malloc squanders segments and can run out
of memory because of a lack of LDT entries before it even comes
close to hitting other limits.

Tony Andrews
...!ihnp4!onecom!wldrdg!tony
Wildridge Consulting, Inc.
Boulder, CO