TAOCP 2.5 Dynamic Storage Allocation: reading guide

How malloc-style allocators work: first-fit versus best-fit, splitting and merging free blocks, boundary tags for fast coalescing, the buddy system, and empirical results on fragmentation.

Time About 9 hours this week

Why it matters

Every malloc, every arena and every slab allocator uses these ideas. Understanding fragmentation helps you debug memory blowups in long-running services.

Before you start

2.2.3 Linked Allocation
C malloc/free (clox)

How to approach it

Implement a tiny first-fit allocator with boundary tags over a static byte array in C, then a buddy allocator. Write a test that does random allocate/free and checks no block overlaps.

Exercises

Work every exercise rated 10 to 20; most are about tracing the algorithm by hand or tweaking one step, which is exactly the skill you want. Pick one or two rated 20 to 25 that involve modifying the algorithm and implement your modification in a real language with tests. Skip HM exercises unless you enjoy calculus, and treat anything rated 40+ as a research problem, not homework.

Traps

Forgetting to merge with both neighbors on free.
Alignment. Real allocators must return aligned addresses; Knuth's model ignores this.