Buddy memory allocation

The buddy memory allocation technique is a memory allocation algorithm that divides memory into partitions to try to satisfy a memory request as suitably as possible. This system makes use of splitting memory into halves to try to give a best fit. According to Donald Knuth, the buddy system was invented in 1963 by Harry Markowitz, and was first described by Kenneth C. Knowlton (published 1965). The Buddy memory allocation is relatively easy to implement. It supports limited but efficient splitting and coalescing of memory blocks.