[Python-Dev] [numpy wishlist] PyMem_*Calloc

[Nathaniel Smith]

On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 12:51 PM, Julian Taylor
<jtaylor.debian at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> In NumPy what we want is the tracing, not the exchangeable allocators.
> I don't think it is a good idea for the core of a whole stack of
> C-extension based modules to replace the default allocator or allowing
> other modules to replace the allocator NumPy uses.

I don't think modules are ever supposed to replace the underlying
allocator itself -- and it'd be very difficult to do this safely,
since by the time any modules are imported there are already active
allocations floating around. I think the allocator replacement
functionality is designed to be used by applications embedding Python,
who can set it up a special allocator before the interpreter starts.

I'm not sure what exactly why one would need to swap out malloc and
friends for something else, so I can't really judge, but it does at
least seem plausible that if someone is taking the trouble to swap out
the allocator like this then numpy should respect that and use the new
allocator.

-n

-- 
Nathaniel J. Smith
Postdoctoral researcher - Informatics - University of Edinburgh
http://vorpus.org