Method and system for memory allocation in a multiprocessing environment

A computer for allocating memory to threads of an application, comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory;
• and
• a memory allocator comprising:
• a plurality of heaps for tracking free tokens of memory, each heap for handling tokens of a fixed token size and tracking collections of different collection sizes of free tokens of the fixed token size;
• a combine all component that combines memory requests with memory requests that have not yet been completed, each memory request being from a different thread of an application;
• and
• a combine component that combines memory requests of the same type and annihilates memory requests of different types.

A computer-readable medium encoded with computer-executable instructions for controlling a computer system for managing memory to threads of an application, by a method comprising:

• providing a plurality of heap data structures for tracking free tokens of memory, each heap for handling tokens of a fixed token size and tracking collections of different collection sizes of free tokens of the fixed token size, each heap having a funnel data structure for tracking memory requests that may be combined;
• receiving memory requests from threads of the application, each memory request having a type of allocate or de-allocate and a token size;
• and
• when memory requests of the same token size are pending concurrently from multiple threads,
• combining memory requests of the same type;
• and
• under control of one of the threads,
• attempting to access the heap for tokens of the token size;
• when the attempt is successful, updating the heap based on the combined memory request;
• and
• when the attempt is unsuccessful, continuing to combine memory requests tracked by the funnel data structure until the heap can be accessed
• so that a heap need be only updated once for a combination of memory requests.