-lmalloc

[Scott Safier]

We have several personal Iris's running IRIX 3.1.  We have ported some
software from BSD systems, and found that there is a difference
between the C function malloc in /usr/lib/libbsd.a and
/usr/lib/libmalloc.a.  In particular the malloc in the latter library
is 8 times faster (by our estimates) than the malloc in the bsd
library (or the malloc provided with gnu emacs).

But there is also something strange with -lmalloc.  Sometimes,
programs which execute perfectly with the bsd malloc, core dump when
the other malloc is invoked.  For example, using X lib with bsd malloc
is ok, but with lmalloc core dumps occur.

Can somebody explain what the exact difference between these two
functions are?

Thanks,
  __
 /  \
 \__          -+--+-                 Scott Safier
    \  _  __   |  |                  Center for Integrated Manufacturing
 \__/ (__/\_)_/|_/|_/                           Decision Systems
                                     Carnegie Mellon
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