Memory system and method for dynamically allocating a memory divided into plural classes with different block sizes to store variable length messages

A memory system comprising:

• a memory;
• a memory manager requesting an area of memory and thereafter dividing memory designated by an operating system in response to the request into groups with each group having memory blocks of the same size, where the size of each group's memory blocks is different and is set to accommodate a size of data units to be stored in the memory, and memory blocks in each group initially being linked together by respective pointers;
• wherein one or more data units are selectively stored in one or more of the memory blocks sized to efficiently accommodate the sizes of the one or more data units;
• and
• wherein the memory manager links unused memory blocks in one of the memory groups together in a list of available memory blocks for the one memory group, and removes a memory block from the list when that memory block is requested for use and returns that memory block to the list when that memory block is no longer needed.

A data processing system comprising:

• a memory connected to a data processor by way of a bus carrying data having a bit width;
• a memory manager dividing the memory into classes with each class having memory blocks of the same size, where the size of each memory block between each class is different and based on the bit width of the bus and wherein each of the memory blocks has a starting address that is a multiple of the bit width of said bus;
• and
• wherein data to be stored in the memory is stored in one or more of the memory blocks.

In a data communications system employing a signaling protocol for conducting data communications between computers over a network, each computer including a memory and a data processor connected by a data bus and processing messages through plural message handling layers in a protocol stack, a method comprising the steps of:

• forming in each memory plural classes of memory blocks with memory blocks in each class having the same size, wherein each of the memory blocks has a starting address that is a multiple of a bit width of the data bus;
• linking memory blocks in each class together and establishing a first pointer for each class pointing to the first memory block allocated in that said class and a second pointer pointing to the first available memory block in that class;
• receiving a message to be processed through the message handling layers of the protocol stack;
• upon receipt of the message, writing the message in one or more of linked together ones of the memory blocks;
• and
• providing the message stored in the one or more linked memory blocks to another of the layers in the protocol stack by passing a pointer to the one or more linked memory blocks to a process corresponding to the another layer.