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Divide 01a-memory.md into doxygen.
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## Memory management
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### Heap-allocation functions: lib/malloc/malloc.h
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Tor imposes a few light wrappers over C's native malloc and free
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functions, to improve convenience, and to allow wholescale replacement
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of malloc and free as needed.
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You should never use 'malloc', 'calloc', 'realloc, or 'free' on their
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own; always use the variants prefixed with 'tor_'.
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They are the same as the standard C functions, with the following
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exceptions:
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* `tor_free(NULL)` is a no-op.
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* `tor_free()` is a macro that takes an lvalue as an argument and sets it to
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NULL after freeing it. To avoid this behavior, you can use `tor_free_()`
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instead.
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* tor_malloc() and friends fail with an assertion if they are asked to
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allocate a value so large that it is probably an underflow.
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* It is always safe to `tor_malloc(0)`, regardless of whether your libc
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allows it.
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* `tor_malloc()`, `tor_realloc()`, and friends are never allowed to fail.
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Instead, Tor will die with an assertion. This means that you never
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need to check their return values. See the next subsection for
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information on why we think this is a good idea.
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We define additional general-purpose memory allocation functions as well:
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* `tor_malloc_zero(x)` behaves as `calloc(1, x)`, except the it makes clear
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the intent to allocate a single zeroed-out value.
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* `tor_reallocarray(x,y)` behaves as the OpenBSD reallocarray function.
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Use it for cases when you need to realloc() in a multiplication-safe
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way.
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And specific-purpose functions as well:
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* `tor_strdup()` and `tor_strndup()` behaves as the underlying libc
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functions, but use `tor_malloc()` instead of the underlying function.
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* `tor_memdup()` copies a chunk of memory of a given size.
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* `tor_memdup_nulterm()` copies a chunk of memory of a given size, then
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NUL-terminates it just to be safe.
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#### Why assert on allocation failure?
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Why don't we allow `tor_malloc()` and its allies to return NULL?
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First, it's error-prone. Many programmers forget to check for NULL return
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values, and testing for `malloc()` failures is a major pain.
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Second, it's not necessarily a great way to handle OOM conditions. It's
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probably better (we think) to have a memory target where we dynamically free
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things ahead of time in order to stay under the target. Trying to respond to
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an OOM at the point of `tor_malloc()` failure, on the other hand, would involve
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a rare operation invoked from deep in the call stack. (Again, that's
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error-prone and hard to debug.)
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Third, thanks to the rise of Linux and other operating systems that allow
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memory to be overcommitted, you can't actually ever rely on getting a NULL
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from `malloc()` when you're out of memory; instead you have to use an approach
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closer to tracking the total memory usage.
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#### Conventions for your own allocation functions.
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Whenever you create a new type, the convention is to give it a pair of
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`x_new()` and `x_free_()` functions, named after the type.
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Calling `x_free(NULL)` should always be a no-op.
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There should additionally be an `x_free()` macro, defined in terms of
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`x_free_()`. This macro should set its lvalue to NULL. You can define it
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using the FREE_AND_NULL macro, as follows:
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```
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#define x_free(ptr) FREE_AND_NULL(x_t, x_free_, (ptr))
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```
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### Grow-only memory allocation: lib/memarea
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It's often handy to allocate a large number of tiny objects, all of which
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need to disappear at the same time. You can do this in tor using the
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memarea.c abstraction, which uses a set of grow-only buffers for allocation,
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and only supports a single "free" operation at the end.
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Using memareas also helps you avoid memory fragmentation. You see, some libc
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malloc implementations perform badly on the case where a large number of
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small temporary objects are allocated at the same time as a few long-lived
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objects of similar size. But if you use tor_malloc() for the long-lived ones
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and a memarea for the temporary object, the malloc implementation is likelier
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to do better.
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To create a new memarea, use `memarea_new()`. To drop all the storage from a
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memarea, and invalidate its pointers, use `memarea_drop_all()`.
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The allocation functions `memarea_alloc()`, `memarea_alloc_zero()`,
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`memarea_memdup()`, `memarea_strdup()`, and `memarea_strndup()` are analogous
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to the similarly-named malloc() functions. There is intentionally no
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`memarea_free()` or `memarea_realloc()`.
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### Special allocation: lib/malloc/map_anon.h
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TODO: WRITEME.
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@ -2,4 +2,77 @@
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@dir /lib/malloc
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@brief lib/malloc: Wrappers and utilities for memory management.
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Tor imposes a few light wrappers over C's native malloc and free
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functions, to improve convenience, and to allow wholescale replacement
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of malloc and free as needed.
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You should never use 'malloc', 'calloc', 'realloc, or 'free' on their
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own; always use the variants prefixed with 'tor_'.
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They are the same as the standard C functions, with the following
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exceptions:
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* `tor_free(NULL)` is a no-op.
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* `tor_free()` is a macro that takes an lvalue as an argument and sets it to
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NULL after freeing it. To avoid this behavior, you can use `tor_free_()`
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instead.
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* tor_malloc() and friends fail with an assertion if they are asked to
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allocate a value so large that it is probably an underflow.
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* It is always safe to `tor_malloc(0)`, regardless of whether your libc
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allows it.
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* `tor_malloc()`, `tor_realloc()`, and friends are never allowed to fail.
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Instead, Tor will die with an assertion. This means that you never
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need to check their return values. See the next subsection for
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information on why we think this is a good idea.
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We define additional general-purpose memory allocation functions as well:
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* `tor_malloc_zero(x)` behaves as `calloc(1, x)`, except the it makes clear
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the intent to allocate a single zeroed-out value.
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* `tor_reallocarray(x,y)` behaves as the OpenBSD reallocarray function.
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Use it for cases when you need to realloc() in a multiplication-safe
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way.
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And specific-purpose functions as well:
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* `tor_strdup()` and `tor_strndup()` behaves as the underlying libc
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functions, but use `tor_malloc()` instead of the underlying function.
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* `tor_memdup()` copies a chunk of memory of a given size.
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* `tor_memdup_nulterm()` copies a chunk of memory of a given size, then
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NUL-terminates it just to be safe.
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#### Why assert on allocation failure?
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Why don't we allow `tor_malloc()` and its allies to return NULL?
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First, it's error-prone. Many programmers forget to check for NULL return
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values, and testing for `malloc()` failures is a major pain.
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Second, it's not necessarily a great way to handle OOM conditions. It's
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probably better (we think) to have a memory target where we dynamically free
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things ahead of time in order to stay under the target. Trying to respond to
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an OOM at the point of `tor_malloc()` failure, on the other hand, would involve
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a rare operation invoked from deep in the call stack. (Again, that's
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error-prone and hard to debug.)
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Third, thanks to the rise of Linux and other operating systems that allow
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memory to be overcommitted, you can't actually ever rely on getting a NULL
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from `malloc()` when you're out of memory; instead you have to use an approach
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closer to tracking the total memory usage.
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#### Conventions for your own allocation functions.
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Whenever you create a new type, the convention is to give it a pair of
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`x_new()` and `x_free_()` functions, named after the type.
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Calling `x_free(NULL)` should always be a no-op.
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There should additionally be an `x_free()` macro, defined in terms of
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`x_free_()`. This macro should set its lvalue to NULL. You can define it
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using the FREE_AND_NULL macro, as follows:
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```
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#define x_free(ptr) FREE_AND_NULL(x_t, x_free_, (ptr))
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```
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**/
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@ -7,4 +7,24 @@ once. This kind of allocation is very fast and avoids fragmentation, at the
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expense of requiring all the data to be freed at the same time. We use this
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for parsing and diff calculations.
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It's often handy to allocate a large number of tiny objects, all of which
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need to disappear at the same time. You can do this in tor using the
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memarea.c abstraction, which uses a set of grow-only buffers for allocation,
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and only supports a single "free" operation at the end.
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Using memareas also helps you avoid memory fragmentation. You see, some libc
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malloc implementations perform badly on the case where a large number of
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small temporary objects are allocated at the same time as a few long-lived
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objects of similar size. But if you use tor_malloc() for the long-lived ones
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and a memarea for the temporary object, the malloc implementation is likelier
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to do better.
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To create a new memarea, use `memarea_new()`. To drop all the storage from a
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memarea, and invalidate its pointers, use `memarea_drop_all()`.
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The allocation functions `memarea_alloc()`, `memarea_alloc_zero()`,
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`memarea_memdup()`, `memarea_strdup()`, and `memarea_strndup()` are analogous
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to the similarly-named malloc() functions. There is intentionally no
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`memarea_free()` or `memarea_realloc()`.
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**/
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