I would like to use Allegro's memory API in my program, however the docs do not specify any functions for memory management; only a function for setting the internal functions is specified.

Is there any plan for allowing the user of A5 to use the same functions for memory management?

A5 contains a function to set the memory management functions:

void al_set_memory_management_functions(
   void *(*malloc)(void *opaque, size_t size),
   void *(*malloc_atomic)(void *opaque, size_t size),
   void (*free)(void *opaque, void *ptr),
   void *(*realloc)(void *opaque, void *ptr, size_t size),
   void *(*debug_malloc)(int line, const char *file, const char *func,
      void *opaque, size_t size),
   void *(*debug_malloc_atomic)(int line, const char *file, const char *func,
      void *opaque, size_t size),
   void (*debug_free)(int line, const char *file, const char *func,
      void *opaque, void *ptr),
   void *(*debug_realloc)(int line, const char *file, const char *func,
      void *opaque, void *ptr, size_t size),
   void *user_opaque);

I'd like to have access to these functions in my A5 library.

My homepage is under construction.

I think the plan was to expose them with al_malloc and al_free. Nobody made a patch for it so far though.

I also wonder what the "_atomic" means in this context.

Indeed, but here is a scenario: the user that uses A5 and external libraries based on A5 will have a hard time debugging his/her app when it comes to memory management, because the external libraries will not use A5' routines.

A block without pointers. It is a terminology coming from garbage collection. It's nice that A5 specifies this, because memory management functions can be set to gc_malloc/gc_malloc_atomic (of the Boehm GC collector).

I'm not sure thats what it actually means...

And currently addons are free to use the AL_MALLOC/AL_FREE macros from aintern_memory.h iirc. I have anyhow.

Neither. It currently is _AL_MALLOC/_AL_FREE, but that's for Allegro internal use only (and addons). al_malloc/al_free are planned to be added.

What does allegro do in al_mallc/al_free that's so special?

Its important for systems that provide entirely different memory managers for Apps and DLLs (*cough*windows/msvc*cough*).

Passing in the application's memory management functions to Allegro, and all addons using those means everyone is using the same memory manager, and address space.