OpenAIVerified interview challenge
Design a memory allocator
Allocate and release memory while keeping track of the free space left between live allocations.
Unlock with Full AccessThe challenge
Simulate a fixed block of memory that receives allocation and release requests. Your allocator must choose the correct available region, recognise invalid frees and combine adjacent free regions. Repeated allocations can leave many small gaps, so the search behaviour matters as the workload grows.
- A simulation of memory management
- You work with numbered addresses and operations. The task does not require managing the process's actual memory.
What you'll practise
Allocation tracking
Distinguish live allocations from free intervals and preserve the requested placement behaviour.
Fragmentation and reuse
Make released space available again, including neighbouring free regions.
Search performance
Keep allocation requests practical when the memory contains many gaps.
solution.pyPython 3.13
def memory_allocator_results(
capacity, operations
):
# Your implementation goes here
passTest cases
Run your code to see results.
Full instructions, starter code and test cases included with Full Access.