realloc vs FreeBSD (was Re: Problem with procmail and parsing large MIME

In <199709152139(_dot_)OAA25558(_at_)seagull(_dot_)rtd(_dot_)com>, Dave 
Costello <dcostell(_at_)rtd(_dot_)com>
writes:

> I am currently running FreeBSD 2.2.1 and Procmail 3.0.3<ver?>. and
> anytime there is a mime attachment of 10MB + to a piece of mail
> procmail slows the system to a halt.
I've been chasing that for the last two weeks, and the problem is
caused by the repeated reallocing procmail does (in pipes.c:readdyn(),
which FreeBSD's malloc doesn't cope with efficiently.

I've appended an exchange with the author of FreeBSD malloc, who
suggests some alternative strategies procmail could follow. I ran out
of time before being able to implement and test any of them; I do hope
someone else will be able to.

Regards,

-- Martijn Koster, m(_dot_)koster(_at_)pobox(_dot_)com

PS: please cc me on any replies, as I'm not on this list.

phk2
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