RE: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] use tlsf for xmalloc engine

[Dan Magenheimer <dan.magenheimer@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> Checked in as c/s 18638.

Excellent!

However, I should have mentioned that I had a reason for exposing
the tlsf-direct (non-xmalloc) interface, which you have hidden by
static'izing some of the routines and removing xmalloc_tlsf.h:

The pool capability can be used to "group" allocated pages so as to
improve locality and reduce fragmentation (kind of similar to
slab/slub but across a wide range of allocation sizes). IOW,
if I want to allocate a large and diverse set of data structures
of types X, Y, and Z, and I can "partition" them into pools
A, B, and C, I should get fewer page translation misses when I walk
the A-specific data structures than if the allocations are all
done via xmalloc.  Further, if I free all of A's data structures,
all the pages will be returned to the free page pool, whereas if
I use xmalloc/xfree, B's and C's allocations will be intermingled
so many/most pages may not be freed.

Since you've retained the getmem/putmem function parameters and
struct pool parameter, this should be easy to patch later, but
please don't specialize it further to meet only xmalloc's needs
as I intend to use pools in my current project (hcache).

Thanks,
Dan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keir Fraser [mailto:keir.fraser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 4:12 AM
> To: Dan Magenheimer; Xen-Devel (E-mail)
> Cc: Diwaker Gupta; Isaku Yamahata; Kurt Hackel; Nitin Gupta
> Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] use tlsf for xmalloc engine
> 
> 
> On 15/10/08 22:03, "Dan Magenheimer" 
> <dan.magenheimer@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > This patch replaces the Xen xmalloc engine with tlsf, an allocation
> > engine that is both more space efficient and time-bounded, 
> especially
> > for allocation sizes between PAGE_SIZE/2 and PAGE_SIZE.
> > 
> > The file xmalloc.c is deprecated but not yet deleted.  A simple
> > switch of a comment line in common/Makefile will change back
> > to the legacy xmalloc/xfree if needed for testing.
> 
> Fixed for style, fixed to satisfy requested alignment parameter to
> xmalloc(), and fixed for multi-page allocations to include the
> BHDR_OVERHEAD. Checked in as c/s 18638.
> 
>  -- Keir
> 
> 
>

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