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[Python-Dev] Prevalence of low-level memory abuse?

Tim Peters tim.peters at gmail.com
Mon Mar 27 01:58:02 CEST 2006 
[Edward Loper]
> Could the debug build's macros for PyMem/PyObject_new/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 FORBIDDEN_BYTEs could
be used to store flags without significant loss of functionality.  It
would make a decent enhancement.
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