[Python-Dev] Prevalence of low-level memory abuse? (original) (raw)

Adam DePrince adam.deprince at gmail.com
Mon Mar 27 06:35:05 CEST 2006


On Sun, 2006-03-26 at 18:58 -0500, Tim Peters wrote:

[Edward Loper] > Could the debug build's macros for PyMem/PyObjectnew/free be modified > to check for mismatches? Or would storing information about which > method was used to allocate each pointer be too expensive? Perhaps a > special build could be used to check for mismatches?

It's partly possible (e.g., it's impossible to know whether a blob of memory was obtained by calling malloc() directly). If someone wants to do it (I do not), the debug build adds 8 bytes to each side of each memory block obtained via each PyMem and PyObject malloc/realloc call, and one of the (current) 8 FORBIDDENBYTEs could be used to store flags without significant loss of functionality. It would make a decent enhancement.

Sounds fun. I'll do it.


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