refalloc

The refalloc library provides a simple API for allocating memory with reference counting. Multi-threading is supported via atomic operations when available. Pointer cycles (like doubly-linked lists) are not supported.

Goals

This project aims to provide easy-to-use basic reference counting for memory blocks allocated in C. In addition:

• The reference counting should be robust against race conditions in multi-threaded applications. This is currently implemented using some atomic operations.

• The interface should be simple and orthogonal.

• The source should not use more language features or libraries than necessary, and should not be larger (in lines of code) than needed.

Build

This project uses CMake for building. Developers can obtain CMake from the following URL: https://cmake.org/download/

To use CMake with this project, first make a directory to hold the build results. Then run CMake in the directory with a path to the source code. On UNIX, the commands would look like the following:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../refalloc

Running CMake should create a build project, which then can be processed using other tools. Usually, the tool would be Makefile or a IDE project. For Makefiles, use the following command to build the project:

make

For IDE projects, the IDE must be installed and ready to use. Open the project within the IDE.

Since this project's source only holds two files, developers could also use these files independently from CMake.

License

This project uses the Unlicense, which makes the source effectively public domain. Go to http://unlicense.org/ to learn more about the Unlicense.

Contributions to this project should likewise be provided under a public domain dedication.