This function duplicates the functionality of allocate() exactly, except that it does not return
a return value. In protocols where you just want to allocate a block
but do not want that block to be your implicitly passed cache_entry, use this function.
Otherwise, SLICC will complain if you do not consume the pointer returned by allocate(),
and if you do a dummy assignment Entry foo := cache.allocate(address), the C++
compiler will complain of an unused variable. This is kind of a hack to get around
those issues, but suggestions welcome.
This is a substitute for MessageBuffers between controllers where you don't
want messages to actually go through the Network, because requests/responses can
always get reordered wrt to one another (even if you turn off Randomization and turn on Ordered)
because you are, after all, going through a network with contention. For systems where you model
multiple controllers that are very tightly coupled and do not actually go through a network,
it is a pain to have to write a coherence protocol to account for mixed up request/response orderings
despite the fact that it's completely unrealistic. This is *not* meant as a substitute for real
MessageBuffers when messages do in fact go over a network.
