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Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2026 23:57:23 +0000
Message-Id: <DJSQVBYR1O3S.W4ZMXLOEPRBH@partin.io>
From: "Tristan Partin" <tristan@partin.io>
Cc: "Peter Eisentraut" <peter@eisentraut.org>, "pgsql-hackers"
 <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Add malloc attribute to memory allocation functions
To: "Tom Lane" <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, "Michael Paquier" <michael@paquier.xyz>
References: <DJNFBUWD276K.2OPIYJQS75W84@partin.io>
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 <1847455.1783439616@sss.pgh.pa.us> <ak2EhhPxWaxPigsc@paquier.xyz>
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On Tue Jul 7, 2026 at 6:54 PM CDT, Tom Lane wrote:
> Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz> writes:
>> Additional question.  Does this help with requirements like the one
>> listed in fe-exec.c for PQfreemem() under WIN32?
>
> Yeah, I was wondering about that point too.  It would be really nice
> to have automated checks for that.  Maybe the right thing to do here
> (to start anyway) is to put in targeted annotations that address
> specific pain points like that one.
>
> One issue that'd have to be dealt with is that that would involve
> putting annotations into the public header file libpq-fe.h.  We'd need
> to be sure we do not break things for applications using compilers
> other than what we built libpq with.  That seems reasonably easy to do
> with some macro trickery, but it's a point to keep in mind.

Ok, I think the path forward is two-fold:

1. Add the annotations to specific pain points as Tom suggested=20
   (PGfreemem(), frontend memory allocators)
2. Add the annotations to the backend allocators knowing that the patch=20
   may not be committed

--=20
Tristan Partin
PostgreSQL Contributors Team
AWS (https://aws.amazon.com)