Arena Allocation

Arena allocation is a memory management technique where memory is allocated from a large, contiguous block called an arena or region, and deallocated all at once when the arena is destroyed. It is commonly used in performance-critical applications like compilers, game engines, and databases to reduce fragmentation and allocation overhead. This approach avoids individual deallocations, making it faster than traditional heap allocation for short-lived objects.

Also known as: Region-based allocation, Memory pool, Bump allocator, Linear allocator, Monotonic allocator

Why learn Arena Allocation?

Developers should use arena allocation when they need high-performance memory management for objects with similar lifetimes, such as in parsing, temporary data structures, or batch processing. It is particularly beneficial in systems programming, game development, and embedded systems where predictable memory usage and reduced garbage collection pauses are critical. This technique minimizes fragmentation and allocation costs, improving cache locality and overall efficiency.

Learning Resources

• docs: Arena Allocation in Rust
• tutorial: Memory Allocation Strategies - Game Programming Patterns
• video: Arena Allocator Tutorial in C++
• course: Memory Management in Systems Programming