Replacing malloc, calloc, realloc, and free
Four simple interfaces that provide equivalent functionality to malloc, free, realloc, and calloc exist:
#include "tbb/scalable_allocator.h" void * scalable_malloc (size_t size); void scalable_free (void* ptr); void * scalable_realloc (void* ptr, size_t size); void * scalable_calloc (size_t nobj, size_t size);
These can be used to replace the C language malloc, free, realloc, and calloc memory functions by calling them instead. In general, that is the safest and easiest choice.
Tip
You do not want to make malloc a call to scalable_allocator because scalable_malloc(n) returns a pointer with sufficient alignment for any type, whereas scalable_allocator<char>().allocate(n) is guaranteed only to return a pointer with sufficient alignment for type char.
Be sure that memory from scalable_malloc is freed using scalable_free, and that memory from malloc is freed using free. Mixing these up can have results which are difficult to debug. Therefore, Threading Building Blocks does not attempt to replace malloc, free, realloc, and calloc for you. If you are diligent and make sure you are not mixing malloc with free and scalable_malloc with scalable_free (including if you use a module compiled to use the standard malloc to obtain objects you later free), you can also replace the definitions using extern statements and macros. The code to do this is in Example 11-52.
Example 11-52. Replacing malloc, calloc, realloc, and free
extern "C" void * scalable_malloc(size_t ...