International Business Machines Corporation
Reducing fragmentation of computer memory

Abstract:

A method for transparently moving a block of memory with respect to an application using the block of memory, includes inserting, by a compiler, in an application that includes a memory allocation call, instructions for transparently moving a block of memory with respect to an application using the block of memory. The instructions include obtaining a first pointer returned by a memory allocator, where the first pointer points to an internal data structure, the internal data structure includes a read-write lock and a second pointer, and the second pointer points to an actual memory block. The instructions further include acquiring a read lock on a read-write lock in the internal data structure, before the first pointer is used by the application, obtaining the second pointer to the actual memory block, and dereferencing the second pointer to access the actual memory block for the application data.