My Malloc is a low-level C project where you implement a custom memory allocator, mimicking the behavior of the standard malloc/free interface.
This academic project focuses on understanding memory layout, pointer arithmetic, and heap management at the OS level.
🔍 What It Does
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Heap Initialization:
- A custom heap is initialized using
sbrk()or similar system calls. - A header/footer structure is defined to manage each memory block.
- A custom heap is initialized using
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Memory Allocation (
my_malloc):- Implements first-fit or best-fit strategies to find suitable free blocks.
- Handles block splitting when an allocation leaves excess space.
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Free List Management:
- Maintains a linked list of free blocks for efficient lookup and reuse.
- Optimized for low fragmentation and allocation speed.
🧠 Key Concepts Covered
- Manual memory management
- Data alignment and padding
- Fragmentation (internal/external)
- Pointer manipulation & low-level bitwise operations
- Performance vs. memory trade-offs in allocator design
📚 Context
This project is part of the Systems Programming module at EPITA, designed to build a deep understanding of how memory management works under the hood in C and Unix-based systems.
By reimplementing malloc, students get hands-on experience with the kind of mechanisms used in real-world allocators like dlmalloc or jemalloc, on a smaller, didactic scale.