Memory management

Memory management

Memory management is a core topic within the field of operating systems. It is a crucial function of the operating system that involves allocating and deallocating memory resources to ensure that applications and processes run efficiently.

Key Concepts in Memory Management

1. Allocation and Deallocation: The operating system dynamically assigns portions of the computer’s main memory (RAM) to different programs as they need it and reclaims that memory when the programs no longer require it.
2. Virtual Memory: This technique creates the illusion of a larger main memory than is physically available by using secondary storage (like a hard drive) as an extension of RAM.
3. Fragmentation: This is a major issue that memory management seeks to prevent. Internal fragmentation occurs when a process is allocated more memory than it needs, leaving unused space within the allocated block. External fragmentation happens when there are many small, non-contiguous blocks of free memory that are too small to be used for new processes, even though the total amount of free memory might be large enough.
4. Techniques: The operating system uses various techniques to manage memory, including:
   1. Paging: Dividing a process’s logical address space into fixed-size blocks called pages and the physical memory into equally sized blocks called frames. This allows a process to be stored in non-contiguous memory locations.
   2. Segmentation: Dividing a process into logical segments of varying sizes based on its components (e.g., code, data, stack).
   3. Swapping: Temporarily moving a process from main memory to secondary storage to free up RAM for other processes.

Memory management is essential for enabling multitasking, protecting processes from one another, and optimizing overall system performance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_management

Tags

1. Memory Allocation and Garbage Collections
2. Pass by value and Pass by reference
3. Pointers