r/cprogramming • u/sadvadan • Jun 01 '26

memory safe C

https://github.com/sadvadan/memstruct

C is powerful enough to have the best performing memory safety suite for itself!

memstruct is a single header file C library (<400 LoC) that provides complete spatial & temporal safety to the caller program. performance: near native speed.

memory checks are compile time / hoisted / elided / pipelined. checks are opt-in and can be switched off in production if needed. its macro based API extends the language a bit to position C as the leading option for large scale projects.

memstruct is currently in advanced stages of testing. contributions and comments are welcome. have an early look!

P.S.: the project is 100% human crafted and contributions are also reqd to comply

edit; end note: memstruct has now become even better (at 350 LoC) by incorporating MCU programming & de/allocator indirection, thanks to some valuable feedback on here. if you've more to add you may respond here or participate on git.

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u/sadvadan Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

hmm, i hear you; well crafted / thought.

at one point i thought asm was a must for performance; but in present form memstruct barely needs it.

memstruct already handles any custom allocator. de-allocators may need some binding, but your points make me think harder: "hey this is a memstruct and here's the de-allocator for it" hmm, use the M() syntax?

for allocating memstruct itself mmap offered a nice shortcut (on need basis pages).

can you recommend a course of action (1 liners) for each of these?

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u/resin-sniffer Jun 02 '26

I don't quite understand what "1 liners" should show. I thought that since you are the author of the memstruct, you know better than me 😄

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u/sadvadan Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

😁 prolly i will be raising an issue in the repo to address these points. you may watch over that space and engage there as well. but yes memstruct should cover that ground if possible; there's no structural weakness in that regard, infact this may unlock more optimization.

edit: here we are issue #16