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Linear Memory Arena

Medium · memory_optimization · Quant Developer interview question · c++, memory, pointers, optimization

Standard dynamic memory allocation introduces non-deterministic latency due to heap fragmentation and lock contention. A linear allocator, or memory arena, mitigates this by pre-allocating a contiguous block of memory and managing allocations via a simple pointer bump. This approach ensures O(1) allocation time and cache locality, which is critical for high-frequency trading and low-latency financial systems. Task Implement the LinearAllocator class to manage a fixed-size memory block using a p