malloc problem to allocate very large blocks

From: Tung-Han Hsieh (thhsieh@xcin.phys.ntu.edu.tw)
Date: Mon Jul 28 2003 - 01:44:28 EST


Hello,

I am developing applications which requires more than 2GB memory.
But I found that in my Linux system the malloc() cannot allocate
more than 2GB memory. Here is the details of my system:

CPU: Pentium 4 2.53 GHz
RAM: 2 GB
Swap: 512 MB
OS: Debian-3.0 stable
Kernel: 2.4.20
gcc: 2.95.4 20011002
glibc: 2.2.5-6

In theory, in a 32-bits machine the maximum allocatable memory
is up to 4GB. But in the following very simple testing program:

=====================================================================
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

main()
{
    size_t l;
    char *s1=NULL, *s2=NULL;

    l = 1024*1024*1024;

    s1 = malloc(l);
    s2 = malloc(l);
    if (! s1) printf("s1 malloc failed\n");
    if (! s2) printf("s2 malloc failed\n");
}
=====================================================================

only the block for s1 can be allocated. Further, if I change the
program to

=====================================================================
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

main()
{
    size_t l;
    char *s1=NULL;

    l = 2*1024*1024*1024;

    s1 = malloc(l);
    if (! s1) printf("s1 malloc failed\n");
}
=====================================================================

the gcc complier complain to me that "foo.c:9: warning: integer overflow
in expression" during the compilation (I use: "gcc foo.c" to compile it),
and the block for s1 cannot be allocated at all. I am wondering if there
is any way to overcome the 2GB limit.

Thank you very much for your reply in advance.

Best Regards,

T.H.Hsieh
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