Zig heading toward a self-hosting compiler

Posted Oct 11, 2020 17:47 UTC (Sun) by epa (subscriber, #39769)
In reply to: Zig heading toward a self-hosting compiler by zlynx
Parent article: Zig heading toward a self-hosting compiler

It's the writing that triggers OOM.

Isn't that exactly the point? If the memory isn't actually available, the allocation appears to succeed, but then blows up when you try to use it. There is not a way to say "please allocate some memory, and I do intend to use it, so if we're out of RAM tell me now (I'll cope), and if not, please stick to your promise that the memory exists and can be used".

It's good that a single massive allocation returns failure, but that does not come close to having a reliable failure mode in all cases.

Zig heading toward a self-hosting compiler

Posted Oct 11, 2020 18:29 UTC (Sun) by zlynx (guest, #2285) [Link] (1 responses)

With strict commit any allocation that succeeds is guaranteed to be available. You won't get the OOM handler killing anything when the memory is used. That's why I run my servers that way. Server applications tend to be built to handle memory allocation failures.

Unless it's Redis. You have to run Redis with full overcommit enabled.

Zig heading toward a self-hosting compiler

Posted Oct 18, 2020 15:06 UTC (Sun) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]

Thanks, sorry I misunderstood your earlier comment.