Re: malloc

On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 5:39 AM, ratheesh k <[email protected]> wrote:
> Is the below statement right or wrong ?
>
> malloc tries to allocate continous memmory space in virtual address
> space.  not in physical address space.

Hi,

This is true, but in theory, malloc doesn't have a notion of a virtual
or physical address space. Malloc is defined as : it tries to allocate
a contiguous memory chunk of at least the required size in a
system-defined pool. The question of setting up virtual address
spaces, of lazy allocation of physical pages, etc. is left up to the
underlying OS. In other terms : it's mmap(2) and brk(2) that take care
of this. Malloc relies on them for this kind of questions.

Regards,

-- 
Uriel Corfa
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