diff --git a/readme.md b/readme.md index fe2ead69..64cd0c4b 100644 --- a/readme.md +++ b/readme.md @@ -27,6 +27,8 @@ It also has an easy way to override the default allocator in [Windows](#override to integrate and adapt in other projects. For runtime systems it provides hooks for a monotonic _heartbeat_ and deferred freeing (for bounded worst-case times with reference counting). + Partly due to its simplicity, mimalloc has been ported to many systems (Windows, macOS, + Linux, WASM, various BSD's, Haiku, MUSL, etc) and has excellent support for dynamic overriding. - __free list sharding__: instead of one big free list (per size class) we have many smaller lists per "mimalloc page" which reduces fragmentation and increases locality -- @@ -42,7 +44,7 @@ It also has an easy way to override the default allocator in [Windows](#override similar to randomized algorithms like skip lists where adding a random oracle removes the need for a more complex algorithm. - __eager page reset__: when a "page" becomes empty (with increased chance - due to free list sharding) the memory is marked to the OS as unused ("reset" or "purged") + due to free list sharding) the memory is marked to the OS as unused (reset or decommitted) reducing (real) memory pressure and fragmentation, especially in long running programs. - __secure__: _mimalloc_ can be built in secure mode, adding guard pages, @@ -52,13 +54,12 @@ It also has an easy way to override the default allocator in [Windows](#override - __first-class heaps__: efficiently create and use multiple heaps to allocate across different regions. A heap can be destroyed at once instead of deallocating each object separately. - __bounded__: it does not suffer from _blowup_ \[1\], has bounded worst-case allocation - times (_wcat_), bounded space overhead (~0.2% meta-data, with low internal fragmentation), - and has no internal points of contention using only atomic operations. + times (_wcat_) (upto OS primitives), bounded space overhead (~0.2% meta-data, with low + internal fragmentation), and has no internal points of contention using only atomic operations. - __fast__: In our benchmarks (see [below](#performance)), _mimalloc_ outperforms other leading allocators (_jemalloc_, _tcmalloc_, _Hoard_, etc), - and often uses less memory. A nice property - is that it does consistently well over a wide range of benchmarks. There is also good huge OS page - support for larger server programs. + and often uses less memory. A nice property is that it does consistently well over a wide range + of benchmarks. There is also good huge OS page support for larger server programs. The [documentation](https://microsoft.github.io/mimalloc) gives a full overview of the API. You can read more on the design of _mimalloc_ in the [technical report](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/mimalloc-free-list-sharding-in-action) which also has detailed benchmark results.