Add a paragraph about obmalloc turning up bugs in extension modules
Mention the new ports
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@ -751,8 +751,24 @@ memory overhead. The allocator uses C's \function{malloc()} function
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to get large pools of memory, and then fulfills smaller memory
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requests from these pools. It can be enabled by providing the
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\longprogramopt{with-pymalloc} option to the \program{configure} script; see
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\file{Objects/obmalloc.c} for the implementation details.
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Contributed by Vladimir Marangozov.
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\file{Objects/obmalloc.c} for the implementation details.
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Authors of C extension modules should test their code with the object
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allocator enabled, because some incorrect code may break, causing core
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dumps at runtime. There are a bunch of memory allocation functions in
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Python's C API that have previously been just aliases for the C
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library's \function{malloc()} and \function{free()}, meaning that if
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you accidentally called mismatched functions, the error wouldn't be
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noticeable. When the object allocator is enabled, these functions
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aren't aliases of \function{malloc()} and \function{free()} any more,
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and calling the wrong function to free memory will get you a core
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dump. For example, if memory was allocated using
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\function{PyMem_New()}, it has to be freed using
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\function{PyMem_Del()}, not \function{free()}. A few modules included
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with Python fell afoul of this and had to be fixed; doubtless there
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are more third-party modules that will have the same problem.
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The object allocator was contributed by Vladimir Marangozov.
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\item The speed of line-oriented file I/O has been improved because
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people often complain about its lack of speed, and because it's often
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@ -827,6 +843,9 @@ code.
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\item The size of the Unicode character database was shrunk by another
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340K thanks to Fredrik Lundh.
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\item Some new ports were contributed: MacOS X (by Steven Majewski),
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Cygwin (by Jason Tishler); RISCOS (by Dietmar Schwertberger).
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\end{itemize}
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And there's the usual list of minor bugfixes, minor memory leaks,
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