[Python-Dev] Debug entry points for PyMalloc (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido@python.org
Thu, 21 Mar 2002 08:06:04 -0500

The thing I've dreaded most about switching to pymalloc is losing the invaluable memory-corruption clues supplied by the Microsoft debug-build malloc. On more than one occasion, they've found wild stores, out-of-bounds reads, reads of uninitialized memory, and reads of free()ed memory in Python. It does this by spraying special bytes all over malloc'ed memory at various times, then checking the bytes for sanity at free() and realloc() times.

Rather than trying to mimic this in pymalloc, isn't it easier to have a way to go back to the platform malloc?

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)