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| From | James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | comp.lang.c |
| Subject | Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? |
| Date | 2012-05-15 18:42 -0400 |
| Organization | A noiseless patient Spider |
| Message-ID | <4FB2DBC4.1020000@verizon.net> (permalink) |
| References | <joui61$898$1@speranza.aioe.org> |
On 05/15/2012 05:34 PM, Raj Pashwar wrote: > As per subject-line, thank-you The malloc family is often implemented by allocating large blocks from the operating system, and handing out only a small portion of each block at a time. free() cannot possibly return a block of memory to the OS until all allocations from that block are free()'d, so you shouldn't expect an immediate increase in memory available to other processes. Even when free() could return a block of memory to the OS, it might not choose to do so; the standard doesn't require it. On many systems, it doesn't matter much whether or not the memory is returned; if a sufficiently large block of memory remains unused for a sufficiently long period of time, the OS may have means of detecting that fact and swapping it out to disk, transparently to the user. The memory needn't even have been free()d yet.
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Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Raj Pashwar <raj121190@hotmail.NOSPAM.com> - 2012-05-15 21:34 +0000
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-05-16 09:55 +1200
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2012-05-15 18:42 -0400
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-05-15 16:49 -0700
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Ben Pfaff <blp@cs.stanford.edu> - 2012-05-15 16:59 -0700
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-05-15 20:24 -0400
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? David T. Ashley <dashley@gmail.com> - 2012-05-16 13:29 -0400
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> - 2012-05-16 18:36 -0500
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? David T. Ashley <dashley@gmail.com> - 2012-05-17 09:47 -0400
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> - 2012-05-17 11:22 -0500
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2012-05-17 16:54 +0000
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> - 2012-05-18 12:30 -0500
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-05-17 14:09 -0700
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-05-17 21:05 -0400
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> - 2012-05-18 17:41 -0500
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-05-18 20:19 -0400
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> - 2012-05-22 15:08 -0500
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Ben Pfaff <blp@cs.stanford.edu> - 2012-05-22 13:45 -0700
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2012-05-23 03:02 -0500
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Robert Miles <milesrf@Usenet-News.net> - 2012-06-24 23:49 -0500
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> - 2012-06-26 10:33 -0500
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? jgk@panix.com (Joe keane) - 2012-05-18 19:44 +0000
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> - 2012-05-18 17:27 -0500
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? jgk@panix.com (Joe keane) - 2012-05-22 21:52 +0000
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-05-23 11:12 +1200
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2012-05-23 03:15 -0500
Re: Will 'free' return the memory Immediately to the OS ? Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2012-05-17 11:54 -0500
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