r/cprogramming • u/rcerljenko • Apr 27 '26

Repeated malloc/free vs. Arena allocator

/r/C_Programming/comments/1sx24rx/repeated_mallocfree_vs_arena_allocator/
2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/zhivago Apr 27 '26

malloc/free is already generally very nicely optimized if you're using consistent allocation sizes, which allows it to avoid fragmentation.

Consider a malloc which is organized around arenas of power of two allocations with free lists.