Empirical Study on Memory Allocation Patterns in GUI-Based Applications

The ubiquity of dynamic memory allocations in computer programs makes the comprehension of their prevalent patterns of major importance. Previous studies have discussed patterns of memory allocations in different categories of applications. In this paper, we investigate these patterns for GUI-based applications. We analyzed 16 real-world applications built on top of two widely adopted frameworks, GTK+ and Qt. The target applications were selected due to their similarities in terms of look and feel and functionalities. We found that most of their memory allocation patterns were compatible with prevalent patterns observed in non-GUI applications. Surprisingly, on average, Qt-based applications showed allocation sizes twice larger than applications using GTK+, which underscores the significant impact of framework selection on memory allocation sizes. Two distinct patterns of allocation paths were observed in GTK+ applications and Qt applications, which indicate how these applications and the related frameworks behave in terms of memory allocations.