Steps:

1. Dynamic Memory Allocation

Dynamic memory allocation allows a program to allocate memory at runtime, adjusting the memory size based on the program's needs. The malloc function in C allocates memory from the heap, and when it is no longer needed, free is called to release the memory back.

In a standard implementation, malloc maintains a list of free memory blocks and allocates memory from it. If a block is large enough, malloc splits it and returns a part of it. When free is called, the memory is added back to the list of free blocks.

2. Binary Search Tree (BST)

A Binary Search Tree is a data structure in which each node has at most two children: a left child and a right child. For each node:

• The left child contains values smaller than the node.
• The right child contains values larger than the node.

In this implementation, the BST is used to efficiently manage free memory blocks. Each node of the tree represents a free memory block with:

• Start address: The starting address of the block.
• Block size: The size of the free block.

The blocks are inserted into the BST, maintaining the BST property where blocks are ordered by their starting addresses.

3. Memory Pool

Instead of allocating memory from the system directly (via OS calls), you allocate a fixed-size pool of memory at the start, which simulates the heap. The pool is managed by the malloc and free functions, with free blocks stored in the BST.

#define MEMORY_POOL_SIZE 1024 * 1024  // 1 MB
char memory_pool[MEMORY_POOL_SIZE];

This memory_pool is used for all memory allocations, and the malloc function will return pointers to portions of this pool.

4. malloc Operation (Allocation)

When malloc is called:

• It searches for a free block of memory in the BST that is large enough to satisfy the request.
• It selects the "best fit" block (the smallest block that is larger than or equal to the requested size).