Re: When should ralloc.c be used? (WAS: bug#24358)

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Richard Stallman <address@hidden>
> CC: address@hidden, address@hidden,
>       address@hidden
> Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2016 12:55:36 -0400
> 
>   > I think native malloc on GNU/Linux is much better these days; we were
>   > using it all the recent years, until glibc developers removed the
>   > hooks we needed for unexec support (which is why those GNU/Linux
>   > systems where this change is already installed switched to gmalloc and
>   > ralloc instead).
> 
> Should we talk with them about putting in those hooks or other
> suitable hooks?  Then we could go back to the libc malloc.

I think we tried, and more or less failed.  (That was in the context
of unexec, but the arguments are more or less similar.)

>   > It imposes hard-to-fulfill requirements on functions that get C
>   > pointers to buffer text or to Lisp string data: those functions must
>   > never call malloc, directly or indirectly.
> 
> I think the way to fix those is by systematically looking at the
> source for them, rather than by debugging.

Yes, but finding out whether this is so is not easy, because the
malloc call is sometimes buried very deep.