allocator

[john ball]

For my Bulk Allocator function how can I returns a pointer to a contiguous block of memory of at least size bytes, similar to malloc()

extra 8 bytes will be given to a header for our bulk allocated objects in the same fashion as pool allocated objects thus being freed easily

bulk_alloc() function returns a pointer to a contiguous block of memory similar to malloc().

[Stephan van Hulst]

Uhh how about just this:
void* bulk_alloc(size_t size) {  return malloc(size + 8); }

[John Matthews]

I'm wondering if the 'header' is hidden from the caller? Ie. in the same way that the memory returned by malloc() at address X probably starts at X-N where N is the size of the 'header' containing information for use by the system. In which case the appropriate code (which I'm assuming should be C) might be:
void *bulk_alloc(size_t size) {    return (char*)malloc(size + 8) + 8; // needs check for NULL } void bulk_free(void *mem) {    free((char*)mem - 8); } But I'm guessing.