Why are malloc() and printf() said as non-reentrant?

Question

In UNIX systems we know malloc() is a non-reentrant function (system call). Why is that?

Similarly, printf() also is said to be non-reentrant; why?

I know the definition of re-entrancy, but I wanted to know why it applies to these functions. What prevents them being guaranteed reentrant?

Answer 1

malloc and printf usually use global structures, and employ lock-based synchronization internally. That's why they're not reentrant.

The malloc function could either be thread-safe or thread-unsafe. Both are not reentrant:

1. Malloc operates on a global heap, and it's possible that two different invocations of malloc that happen at the same time, return the same memory block. (The 2nd malloc call should happen before an address of the chunk is fetched, but the chunk is not marked as unavailable). This violates the postcondition of malloc, so this implementation would not be re-entrant.

2. To prevent this effect, a thread-safe implementation of malloc would use lock-based synchronization. However, if malloc is called from signal handler, the following situation may happen:

   malloc();            //initial call
     lock(memory_lock); //acquire lock inside malloc implementation
   signal_handler();    //interrupt and process signal
   malloc();            //call malloc() inside signal handler
     lock(memory_lock); //try to acquire lock in malloc implementation
     // DEADLOCK!  We wait for release of memory_lock, but 
     // it won't be released because the original malloc call is interrupted
   

   This situation won't happen when malloc is simply called from different threads. Indeed, the reentrancy concept goes beyond thread-safety and also requires functions to work properly even if one of its invocation never terminates. That's basically the reasoning why any function with locks would be not re-entrant.

The printf function also operated on global data. Any output stream usually employs a global buffer attached to the resource data are sent to (a buffer for terminal, or for a file). The print process is usually a sequence of copying data to buffer and flushing the buffer afterwards. This buffer should be protected by locks in the same way malloc does. Therefore, printf is also non-reentrant.

Answer 2

Let's understand what we mean by re-entrant. A re-entrant function can be invoked before a previous invocation has finished. This might happen if

• a function is called in a signal handler (or more generally than Unix some interrupt handler) for a signal that was raised during execution of the function
• a function is called recursively

malloc isn't re-entrant because it is managing several global data structures that track free memory blocks.

printf isn't re-entrant because it modifies a global variable i.e. the content of the FILE* stout.

Answer 3

There are at least three concepts here, all of which are conflated in colloquial language, which might be why you were confused.

• thread-safe
• critical section
• re-entrant

To take the easiest one first: Both malloc and printf are thread-safe. They have been guaranteed to be thread-safe in Standard C since 2011, in POSIX since 2001, and in practice since long before that. What this means is that the following program is guaranteed not to crash or exhibit bad behavior:

#include <pthread.h>
#include <stdio.h>

void *printme(void *msg) {
  while (1)
    printf("%s\r", (char*)msg);
}

int main() {
  pthread_t thr;
  pthread_create(&thr, NULL, printme, "hello");        
  pthread_create(&thr, NULL, printme, "goodbye");        
  pthread_join(thr, NULL);
}

An example of a function which is not thread-safe is strtok. If you call strtok from two different threads simultaneously, the result is undefined behavior — because strtok internally uses a static buffer to keep track of its state. glibc adds strtok_r to fix this problem, and C11 added the same thing (but optionally and under a different name, because Not Invented Here) as strtok_s.

Okay, but doesn't printf use global resources to build its output, too? In fact, what would it even mean to print to stdout from two threads simultaneously? That brings us to the next topic. Obviously printf is going to be a critical section in any program that uses it. Only one thread of execution is allowed to be inside the critical section at once.

At least in POSIX-compliant systems, this is achieved by having printf begin with a call to flockfile(stdout) and end with a call to funlockfile(stdout), which is basically like taking a global mutex associated with stdout.

However, each distinct FILE in the program is allowed to have its own mutex. This means that one thread can call fprintf(f1,...) at the same time that a second thread is in the middle of a call to fprintf(f2,...). There's no race condition here. (Whether your libc actually runs those two calls in parallel is a QoI issue. I don't actually know what glibc does.)

Similarly, malloc is unlikely to be a critical section in any modern system, because modern systems are smart enough to keep one pool of memory for each thread in the system, rather than having all N threads fight over a single pool. (The sbrk system call will still probably be a critical section, but malloc spends very little of its time in sbrk. Or mmap, or whatever the cool kids are using these days.)

Okay, so what does re-entrancy actually mean? Basically, it means that the function can safely be called recursively — the current invocation is "put on hold" while a second invocation runs, and then the first invocation is still able to "pick up where it left off." (Technically this might not be due to a recursive call: the first invocation might be in Thread A, which gets interrupted in the middle by Thread B, which makes the second invocation. But that scenario is just a special case of thread-safety, so we can forget about it in this paragraph.)

Neither printf nor malloc can possibly be called recursively by a single thread, because they are leaf functions (they don't call themselves nor call out to any user-controlled code that could possibly make a recursive call). And, as we saw above, they've been thread-safe against *multi-*threaded re-entrant calls since 2001 (by using locks).

So, whoever told you that printf and malloc were non-reentrant was wrong; what they meant to say was probably that both of them have the potential to be critical sections in your program — bottlenecks where only one thread can get through at a time.

---

Pedantic note: glibc does provide an extension by which printf can be made to call arbitrary user code, including re-calling itself. This is perfectly safe in all its permutations — at least as far as thread-safety is concerned. (Obviously it opens the door to absolutely insane format-string vulnerabilities.) There are two variants: register_printf_function (which is documented and reasonably sane, but officially "deprecated") and register_printf_specifier (which is almost identical except for one extra undocumented parameter and a total lack of user-facing documentation). I wouldn't recommend either of them, and mention them here merely as an interesting aside.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <printf.h>  // glibc extension

int widget(FILE *fp, const struct printf_info *info, const void *const *args) {
  static int count = 5;
  int w = *((const int *) args[0]);
  printf("boo!");  // direct recursive call
  return fprintf(fp, --count ? "<%W>" : "<%d>", w);  // indirect recursive call
}
int widget_arginfo(const struct printf_info *info, size_t n, int *argtypes) {
  argtypes[0] = PA_INT;
  return 1;
}
int main() {
  register_printf_function('W', widget, widget_arginfo);
  printf("|%W|\n", 42);
}

Answer 4

Most likely because you can't start writing output while another call to printf is still printing it's self. The same goes for memory allocation and deallocation.

Answer 5

It's because both works with global resources: heap memory structures and console.

EDIT: the heap is nothing else than a kind linked list structure. Each malloc or free modifies it, so having several threads in the same time with writing access to it will damage its consistency.

EDIT2: another detail: they could be made reentrant by default by using mutexes. But this approach is costly, and there is no garanty that they will be always used in MT environment.

So there are two solutions: to make 2 library functions, one reentrant and one not or leave the mutex part to the user. They've choosed the second.

Also, it can be because the original versions of these functions were non-reentrant, so the've been declared so for compatibility.

Answer 6

If you try calling malloc from two separate threads (unless you have a thread-safe version, not guaranteed by C standard), bad things happen, because there's only one heap for two threads. Same for printf- the behaviour is undefined. That's what makes them in reality non-reentrant.