[TUHS] Early non-Unix filesystems?

[Doug McIlroy]

> Those file structures are collected into a single, global table. The
> question is why this latter table? One could rather imagine an
> implementation where open() allocates (e.g., via malloc())

Depending on how malloc() is implemented, fragmentation can be
serious in a program that runs forever with as many frees as
allocs. Separate allocations for each item can also be costly in time.

One malloc() strategy is to divide the arena into regions,
each of which caters for blocks of a single size, so
fragmentation doesn't occur. In essence that's how the
system tables work, except that these tables have
hard limits. Now, if the tables could be reallocated
as needed ...

Another problem with per-item allocations is performance
monitoring and debugging. It's hard to see what's
going on in a well mixed dynamic storage heap.

Doug