Reimplementing software building blocks like malloc and free in D

[rikki cattermole]

On 12/08/2018 6:59 AM, Aruna Maurya wrote:
> 1. If it would have been C++, the above can be implemented by using the 
> mmap() syscall to                  allocate memory from the heap. 
> However, something that I am not able to understand in the idea 
> description is 'runtime hooks'.

A runtime hook is a function that the compiler injects a call to, to 
perform some function. Like allocate a class.

By reimplementing a lot of these primitives, the compiler will be able 
to optimize them better e.g. inlining and removing dependencies on other 
runtime information.

> 2. Also as far as I can understand, this idea is about implementing the 
> above from scratch, and not tweaking the existing codebase. Do let me 
> know if I am wrong.

It is modifying existing druntime and with it dmd (frontend) after 
developing these building blocks.

This project is just an idea, you can set your own set of goals and 
scope in the proposal. For example, you may choose to rewrite the memory 
management stuff in libc in D and support it across Windows, Linux and 
OSX. Instead of dealing with integration into druntime/dmd.