MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2026 GLIBC DIGEST · OPEN-SOURCE SYSTEMS DAILY VOL. 1 · NO. 110
Late Edition · APRIL 20, 2026 · VOL. 1 · NO. 110
The glibc Digest
— A Daily Record of the GNU C Library —
malloc Proposed

malloc: Introduce ifuncs for malloc functions

A patch introduces ifuncs for malloc functions, renaming core implementations with a `_core` suffix. Discussion questions the suffix choice.

This patch introduces ifuncs and resolvers for malloc-related functions. Core implementations are renamed with the _core suffix, and a generic resolver is provided. The patch includes an AArch64-specific resolver as an example. A question is raised about the choice of the _core suffix vs. the _generic suffix.

Technical Tradeoffs

  • Introduces ifuncs for potential performance benefits via target-specific implementations.
  • Renaming core functions requires careful consideration of naming conventions.
  • Targets without ifunc support will alias external functions to their respective *_core symbols.
Filed Under: mallocifuncperformanceABI