**Mantu Matei-Cristian** 
**312CA**
# README Tema 1 SD - Virtual Memory Allocator

## Description
This program acts as a Virtual Memory Allocator, with the user being able to
allocate, free, write and read data saved as blocks. The blocks are
**virtually** allocated in an arena, the actual space being allocated only when
data is written inside the blocks. If two or more blocks are next to eachother,
they become miniblocks, part of the block containing them. Evidently, the
actual addresses of the blocks on the RAM do not correspond with the addresses
displayed.

## How does it work?
The blocks are stored using a doubly linked, inside every block there is
another doubly linked list, storing the miniblocks.
After starting the program, it should receive the following command:

    `ALLOC_ARENA <size>` - it "allocates" the arena where the blocks will be
    stored. Then, the following commands may be used:
    
    `ALLOC_BLOCK <address> <size>` - it adds a block to the arena, at the
    address specified. If the block starts at the end of another block, it
    becomes a miniblock, part of that block. Then, the program checks whether
    the new (mini)block ends where the next block would start, in that case the
    blocks are concatenated, forming just one block. Error messages are
    displayed if zone where the block should be allocated is not free or it
    is outside the arena.
    
    `FREE_BLOCK <address>` - it frees the miniblock at the specified address.
    If it is in the middle of a block, the block is split into two. If the
    deleted miniblock is alone inside a block, the block is deleted as well,
    and the block list is relinked. Error messages are displayed if the free
    block doesnt exist.
    
    `READ <address> <size>` - it gets the <size> characters from the buffers
    stored inside each miniblock. And saves it into one, big buffer which is
    printed to stdout. If <size> characters aren't available to be read, it
    reads the max number of characters possible and prints a message. If none,
    it prints an error message. For implementing it, I first checked the size
    available for reading and then I used memcpy to copy every miniblock into
    the buffer. Also, if the <address> doesn't correspond to a start_address,
    an offset is used.
    
    `WRITE <address> <size> <data>` - it reads <size> characters from stdin and
    saves it in a buffer. Then it checks how much can be written at address.
    If less than <size> characters, it prints a message. If none, it prints an
    error message. The implementation is similar to the read function.
    
    `PMAP` - it prints information about the arena in the requested format.
    Done by iterating through each list. Note: The original framework provided
    didn't have a field inside the arena struct for counting the numbers of
    miniblocks, so I didn't add one. This resulted in an additional iteration
    through the list.
    
    `DEALLOC_ARENA` - frees all the allocated memory and stops the program
    
    BONUS:
    `MPROTECT <address> <permissions>` - it receives a string of permissions
    which is then translated into the new set of permissions. The permissions
    for each miniblock is saved in a binary format inside a byte variable.
    Each permission corresponds to one bit. Each permission is set using a
    mask.

## Notes
Regarding the tests:

Inside test 34 there are some weird uses of READ. The program reads from a
block which wasn't previously written. I figured from the tests that if I
just print a newline the output is marked as correct, but I don't think that
this was intended.

 - Do you think you could've made a better implementation?
    As I stated in the PMAP description, I could've modified the structs
    to improve the number of iterations through the blocks when printing but
    I decided not to because I was unsure whether it was allowed to modify the
    structs.
    Secondly, I think my code is a bit messy and some code fragments get
    repeated. It's an aspect that I have to work on as I get more experienced.
 - What have you learned by doing this homework?
    I don't think that I've learned something completely new but I've become
    more familiar with linked lists.