Unusual heap size limitations in VS2003 C++
- by Shane MacLaughlin
I have a C++ app that uses large arrays of data, and have noticed while testing that it is running out of memory, while there is still plenty of memory available. I have reduced the code to a sample test case as follows;
void MemTest()
{
size_t Size = 500*1024*1024; // 512mb
if (Size > _HEAP_MAXREQ)
TRACE("Invalid Size");
void * mem = malloc(Size);
if (mem == NULL)
TRACE("allocation failed");
}
If I create a new MFC project, include this function, and run it from InitInstance, it works fine in debug mode (memory allocated as expected), yet fails in release mode (malloc returns NULL). Single stepping through release into the C run times, my function gets inlined I get the following
// malloc.c
void * __cdecl _malloc_base (size_t size)
{
void *res = _nh_malloc_base(size, _newmode);
RTCCALLBACK(_RTC_Allocate_hook, (res, size, 0));
return res;
}
Calling _nh_malloc_base
void * __cdecl _nh_malloc_base (size_t size, int nhFlag)
{
void * pvReturn;
// validate size
if (size > _HEAP_MAXREQ)
return NULL;
'
'
And (size _HEAP_MAXREQ) returns true and hence my memory doesn't get allocated. Putting a watch on size comes back with the exptected 512MB, which suggests the program is linking into a different run-time library with a much smaller _HEAP_MAXREQ. Grepping the VC++ folders for _HEAP_MAXREQ shows the expected 0xFFFFFFE0, so I can't figure out what is happening here. Anyone know of any CRT changes or versions that would cause this problem, or am I missing something way more obvious?
