Online Computer Terms Dictionary - A

arena

<programming> The area of memory attached to a Unix process by the brk and sbrk system calls and used by malloc as dynamic storage. So named from a "malloc: corrupt arena" message emitted when some early versions detected an impossible value in the free block list.

See overrun screw, aliasing bug, memory leak, memory smash, smash the stack.

[Jargon File]

(1995-12-28)