From e4d1b4963d7a8425a68cb304dcb9cc645321f024 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Rob Landley Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:02:54 +0000 Subject: Explain what malloc simple is good for, and what it isn't good for. --- extra/Configs/Config.in | 17 ++++++++++------- 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) (limited to 'extra/Configs') diff --git a/extra/Configs/Config.in b/extra/Configs/Config.in index 98069c59d..1c3d431c7 100644 --- a/extra/Configs/Config.in +++ b/extra/Configs/Config.in @@ -442,13 +442,16 @@ config MALLOC config MALLOC_SIMPLE bool "malloc-simple" help - "malloc-simple" was written from scratch for uClibc, and is the - simplest possible (and therefore smallest) malloc implementation. - This uses only the mmap() system call to allocation memory, and does - not use the brk() system call at all, making it a fine choice for - MMU-less systems with very limited memory. It is rather dumb, and - certainly isn't the fastest. But it is 100% standards compliant, - thread safe, and very small. + "malloc-simple" is trivially simple and slow as molasses. It + was written from scratch for uClibc, and is the simplest possible + (and therefore smallest) malloc implementation. + + This uses only the mmap() system call to allocate and free memory, + and does not use the brk() system call at all, making it a fine + choice for MMU-less systems with very limited memory. It's 100% + standards compliant, thread safe, very small, and releases freed + memory back to the OS immediately rather than keeping it in the + process's heap for reallocation. It is also VERY SLOW. config MALLOC_STANDARD bool "malloc-standard" -- cgit v1.2.3