>> If I can ... I can prevent this situation from occurring.
What "situation" are you trying to prevent?
>> Then I would not have to deal with the numerous amounts of malloc() and free() pairs that are causing me problems.
I'm not clear on what the "problems" are.
Why not just check for a 0 return from malloc and react then? Zero from malloc is a good indicator that things are getting tight
The malloc/free implementation in glibc has been optimized by a lot of smart folks. Adding "variable-sized chunk management" code on top of large blocks returned by malloc doesn't make much sense in my mind.
gg