Arena Allocator Allocation Method & Violation Writing Issue - visual-c++

Question

Basically I'm trying to create an Arena Allocator without using structs, classes, or the new operator to manually manage memory. I have a defined size, a character pool, an allocation method and a freeMemory display method.
Note that pool[0] is my index which will keep track of where the memory has last been filled.
const int size = 50000;
char pool[size];
void start() {
pool[0] = 1;
}
int freeMemory(void) {
int freemem = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
if(pool[i] == NULL) {
freemem++;
}
}
return freemem;
}
void* allocate(int aSize)
{
if(freeMemory() == 0)
{
out();
}
else
{
char* p = NULL;
int pos = pool[0];
pool[pos] = (char) a;
p = &pool[pos];
pool[0] += a;
return((void*) &pool[pos]);
}
}
In the main.cpp:
start();
long* test1 = (long *) allocate(sizeof(long));
cout << freeMemory() << endl; //Returns 49999
*test1 = 0x8BADF00D; //Breaks here
cout << freeMemory() << endl;
It breaks when I try to use 0x8BADF00D and I believe I'm having issues initializing some of these variables too.
Unhandled exception at 0x000515f7 in MemoryManagerC.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation writing location 0x00000004 on 0x8BADF00D

Answer 1

The code below has numerous bugs.
char* pointer;
for(int i = 0; i < size; i++)
{
*pointer = pool[i];
if(pointer != NULL)
{
pointer = (char*) a;
return((void*) i); //return the pointer
}
}
This line copies a character to an unknown memory location. Since pointer has never been initialized, we can only guess where it's pointing
*pointer = pool[i];
You probably meant to copy a pointer.
pointer = &pool[i];
Although if you did mean to copy a pointer from the pool array, this will always be true. None of the elements in that array reside at address NULL.
if(pointer != NULL)
Now this code changes pointer to point to...more invalid addresses. When a is sizeof(long), that size is reinterpreted to be a memory address. Memory address 0x00000004 most likely.
pointer = (char*) a;
And then this will return the address 0x00000000, in your case. Because i is 0.
return((void*) i); //return the pointer

Answer 2

There are some problems with allocate:
char* pointer = NULL;
int pos = pool[0];
pool[0] is a char. It's not big enough to store indexes to all members of the array.
pool[pos] = (char) a;
I'm not sure what you're storing here, or why. You seem to be storing the size of the allocation in the space that you're allocating.
pointer = &pool[pos + a];
I think you're constructing a pointer to the memory after the allocated portion. Is that right?
pool[0] += a;
And here you're incrementing the offset that shows how much of the pool is allocated, except that a single char isn't going to be big enough for more than a tiny quantity of allocations.
return((void*) &pointer);
And now you're returning the address of the pointer variable. That's going to be an address on the stack, and unsafe to use. Even if you just the contents of pointer instead of its address, I think it would point after the region you just allocated in your pool.
There are also problems with freeMemory. It compares the contents of the pool (char elements) with NULL. This suggests you think it contains pointers, but they are just chars. It's not clear why unallocated parts of the pool would be 0. Do you even allow deallocation within the pool?
Perhaps you could explain how you intend the allocator to work? There's obviously a gap between what you think it should do and what it actually does, but it's not clear what you think it should do, so it's hard to give advice. How do you apportion space in the array? Do you allow deallocation? What information is supposed to be encoded where?
I just realised that allocate uses the undefined variable a. Is that supposed to be the same thing as the parameter aSize? That's what I assume here.

Answer 3

a possible problem with your code might be here.
char* pointer;
for(int i = 0; i < size; i++)
{
*pointer = pool[i];
The thing here is this might work on some compilers (it shouldn't in my opinion).
pointer here is not pointing to anything allocated. So when you do
*pointer = pool[i];
Where should pool[i] be copied to?
For example let's say we delclared pointer like this.
char* pointer = NULL;
now it is clear that
*pointer = pool[i];
is wrong.
g++ (I have noticed) initializes pointers to NULL. So your code will segfault. VC++ might work because it didn't NULL initialize pointer. But you are writing to a memory location that's not yours.