Re: Memory allocation of std::list

From:
"Bo Persson" <bop@gmb.dk>
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.vc.stl
Date:
Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:26:08 +0200
Message-ID:
<7d7uh3F29r4q8U1@mid.individual.net>
Victor wrote:

Yes, I am running in debug mode, but I haven't explicitly define
_SECURE_STL. The size parameter passed to "new" is 28*1700000,
after pressing F11, it went to contruct the object and finally I
read ~170MB from Process Explorer's Private bytes.


It's actually _SECURE_SCL (I misspelled it) and is on by default. Like
Stephan wrote earlier, you also have some iterator debugging code that
might add to the object sizes.

Generally, any performance measures in debug mode is highly unreliable
(unless you intend to deliver you programs in debug mode).

Bo Persson

"Bo Persson" wrote:

Victor wrote:

struct Item
{
  int *pPtr;
  std::list<int*> intList;
};

Item *pItem = new Item[1700000];

I expected the memory usage would be (sizeof(Item) * 1700000) +
(the head pointer of list * 1700000), ie. (28+12)*1700000 = ~64MB,
but the outcome is about 170MB. Would you tell me why is it so?


No, not really. Do you run in debug mode? Using _SECURE_STL to
trace the iterators?

The std::list implementation might also allocate a head node, which
also requires memory.

Also, an allocation of 12 bytes might actually become 16 bytes on
some systems - to reduce heap fragmentation.

I asked this question in the MSDN forums and someone answered me
"You should not only account for the array itself (28 x 1700000 =
47.6M) but also for the size of each constructed std::list object.
That's two nodes, 2 x 36 bytes in your case. That adds up to
47.6M + 2 x 36 x 1700000 = 170M."


Don't know how they came up with that.

But according to my understanding

list()
 : _Mybase(), _Myhead(_Buynode()), _Mysize(0)
 { // construct empty list
 }

The default contructor will only allocate memory for _Myhead using
"_Nodeptr _Pnode = this->_Alnod.allocate(1);" which allocates only
12 bytes (_Nodeptr size). Could you let me know which two nodes
will be allocated in the contructor of std::list?

Also, is there any method to reduce the memory usage of a
std::list or I need to write my own link list?


One obvious way of reducing memory usage is to NOT have a
std::list of int pointers. The overhead is pretty big, compared to
the pointers themselves. Would a std::vector or a std::deque do
the job better?

Bo Persson

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