Re: Newbie question on malloc()

[Jan-Benedict Glaw <jbglaw@lug-owl.de>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1624 bytes --]

On Wed, 2004-06-02 18:41:03 +0100, Glynn Clements <glynn.clements@virgin.net>
wrote in message <16574.4399.288522.256729@cerise.nosuchdomain.co.uk>:
> John T. Williams wrote:
> > As I understand it, that is entirely up to the operation system.  Linux
> > and NT Kernel systems do reclaim unfreed memory, however I believe one
> > the major problems with Win98 was that it did not.
> > 
> > Anyone with more information feel free to correct me
> 
> I very much doubt that the above is accurate.
> 
> It may be that Win98 had some specific memory leaks, but any OS which,
> in the general case, failed to recover a process' memory upon
> termination would run out of memory very quickly.

Well, that all depends on the definition of "OS". Any recent 32+ bit
operating system with virtual memory capabilities and multi-processing
will reclaim malloc()ed RAM upon process termination.

However, there are some minor operating systems (as I said, depends on
definition) out there under which processes *need* to free() their
memory. But if we talk about Linux, *BSD (right, and even Windows
systems starting from Win 3.1) will reclaim memory:)

However, if your program is designed so that you can easily track all
allocations, it doesn't harm if you free everything before exit...

MfG, JBG

-- 
   Jan-Benedict Glaw       jbglaw@lug-owl.de    . +49-172-7608481
   "Eine Freie Meinung in  einem Freien Kopf    | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg
    fuer einen Freien Staat voll Freier Bürger" | im Internet! |   im Irak!
   ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA));

[-- Attachment #2: Digital signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]