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Made my own custom memory allocator in C. Implements and tests the functionality for malloc and free

1 starsC

I built my own custom memory allocator

by sangramnavale·Feb 19, 2026·1 point·0 comments
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AI Analysis

●MidNiche Gem

Educational malloc clone—solid fundamentals but competitive with textbook examples.

Strengths
  • •Clean implementation of core allocator concepts: mmap, first-fit, coalescing, alignment.
  • •Well-documented architecture and allocation flow; good learning reference.
  • •Tangible systems programming fundamentals for students understanding heap internals.
Weaknesses
  • •Lacks visualization despite README claiming it; no benchmarking or glibc comparison.
  • •Limited scope—single-file implementation without realloc/calloc or thread safety; unfinished.
  • •No differentiation from standard CS curriculum projects or textbooks like CSAPP.
Target Audience

Systems programming students, C learners, educators teaching heap management internals

Similar To

CSAPP malloc lab · jemalloc (reference) · mimalloc (reference)

Post Description

I made my own custom dynamic memory allocator in C for the very first time which implements the functioning of malloc() and free() with a linked-list free list and first-fit allocation strategy. It also visualizes its working.

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