Patent ID: 9495305
Filing Date: 2016-11-15
CPC Classification: G06F

Claim Text:
1. A method in a processing system that includes a memory, the method comprising: (a) carrying out memory allocation of a portion of memory of the processing system, the memory allocation comprising: (i) providing a pointer mechanism for the allocated portion of memory, the pointer mechanism being for pointing to locations in the allocated portion of memory, and comprising: (ii) assigning the content of the control structure pointer field to point to the control structure, wherein the control structure's location or content provides an indication of the location of the assigned portion of memory; (iii) assigning a tag value for the portion of memory from a set of available tag values, the assigning using a tag-value-assigning method; and (iv) entering the assigned tag value in the first and second tag fields of the pointer mechanism; and (b) dereferencing a memory address using the pointer mechanism, the dereferencing including ascertaining whether there is a match in the respective contents of the first and second tag fields of the pointer structure, and only granting access permission to the memory address if the ascertaining produces a match, wherein deallocating the allocated portion of memory comprises including the assigned tag value in the set of available tag values, such that said previously assigned tag value may be re-assigned.