A tiny Unix dynamic memory allocator library

It uses calloc() which then uses... the system library's malloc(). I'm not sure what utility this has --- all it does is add some headers and footers to the allocated block in an attempt to catch overflow writes, but practically all existing malloc()s do that already.

The author of this could have picked a better value to fill in the guard area. For the x86 architecture, 0xCC is a good choice. It's an unusual negative value, a largish unsigned value, most likely an invalid address (if dereferenced as a pointer) and if executed, is the INT 3 breakpoint instruction. Other architectures would require different values, but at least pick one that has a good chance of blowing something up if used.

It disallows free(NULL) which the standard allows, so it's not a drop-in replacement. Hard to see the added value although allocators can be good for learning.

This is implemented in terms of calloc()/free(). Is this a joke? Or some kind of post-modern art? Genuinely curious, the use cases aren't clear.

phkmalloc is a real (but single-threaded) allocator and less than 1200 lines: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;svnweb.freebsd.org&#x2F;base&#x2F;stable&#x2F;4&#x2F;lib&#x2F;libc&#x2F;stdlib&#x2F;malloc.c?revision=128477&amp;view=markup" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;svnweb.freebsd.org&#x2F;base&#x2F;stable&#x2F;4&#x2F;lib&#x2F;libc&#x2F;stdlib&#x2F;mal...</a>