Question

This code is from the K & R book – Chapter 8 Section 7: Example – Storage Allocator. This code, at least for me, doesn’t make sense. “Header” is a union of a struct and a “most restrictive alignment type”, which is a long type. Malloc will then find a big enough free space with size of a multiple of the header size.

static Header base;            /* empty list to get started */
static Header *freep = NULL;   /* start of free list */

/* malloc: general-purpose storage allocator */
void *malloc(unsigned nbytes)
{
  Header *p, *prevp;
  Header *morecore(unsigned);
  unsigned nunits;
  nunits = (nbytes+sizeof(Header)-1)/sizeof(Header) + 1;
  if ((prevp = freep) == NULL) {     /* no free list yet */
    base.s.ptr = freeptr = prevptr = &base;
    base.s.size = 0;
  }
  for (p = prevp->s.ptr; ; prevp = p, p = p->s.ptr) {
    if (p->s.size >= nunits) { /* big enough */
      if (p->s.size == nunits) /* exactly */
        prevp->s.ptr = p->s.ptr;
      else {     /* allocate tail end */
        p->s.size -= nunits;
        p += p->s.size;
        p->s.size = nunits;
      }
      freep = prevp;
      return (void *)(p+1);
    }
    if (p == freep) /* wrapped around free list */
      if ((p = morecore(nunits)) == NULL)
        return NULL; /* none left */

  }
}

The odd part of this code is the statement nunits = (nbytes+sizeof(Header)-1)/sizeof(Header) + 1; which is then used in the comparison if (p->s.size >= nunits) to find a big enough space with units in terms of the size of Header. Shouldn’t the former be nunits = (nbytes+sizeof(Header)) / sizeof(Header) only? The original code would evaluate to a value less than it ought to be. What is with the +-1s? Why allocate space less than the desired.

Answer 1

The -1 and +1 are to account for values that aren’t multiplies of the block size.

For example, suppose the block size is 10. If you try to use the formula n / 10 to get the number of required blocks then you would get 1 block for n = 15. This is wrong, you need 2.

If you change the formula to be n / 10 + 1 then it will also be wrong. When n = 20 you only need 2 blocks, but that formula will return 3.

The correct formula is (n - 1) / 10 + 1. That’s how you round up with integer division. The only difference with this and the formula you asked about is the extra sizeof(Header), which is just the extra space needed for the header itself.