Memory Management
Memory management is the functionality of an operating system which handles or manages
primary memory and moves processes back and forth between main memory and disk during
execution. Memory management keeps track of each and every memory location, regardless of
either it is allocated to some process or it is free. It checks how much memory is to be allocated
to processes. It decides which process will get memory at what time. It tracks whenever some
memory gets freed or unallocated and correspondingly it updates the status.
This tutorial will teach you basic concepts related to Memory Management.
Process Address Space
The process address space is the set of logical addresses that a process references in its code.
For example, when 32-bit addressing is in use, addresses can range from 0 to 0x7fffffff; that is,
2^31 possible numbers, for a total theoretical size of 2 gigabytes.
The operating system takes care of mapping the logical addresses to physical addresses at the
time of memory allocation to the program. There are three types of addresses used in a program
before and after memory is allocated −
S.N. Memory Addresses & Description
1
Symbolic addresses
The addresses used in a source code. The variable names, constants, and
instruction labels are the basic elements of the symbolic address space.
2
Relative addresses
At the time of compilation, a compiler converts symbolic addresses into relative
addresses.
3
Physical addresses
The loader generates these addresses at the time when a program is loaded into
main memory.
Virtual and physical addresses are the same in compile-time and load-time address-binding
schemes. Virtual and physical addresses differ in execution-time address-binding scheme.
The set of all logical addresses generated by a program is referred to as a logical address space.
The set of all physical addresses corresponding to these logical addresses is referred to as
a physical address space.
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The runtime mapping from virtual to physical address is done by the memory management unit
(MMU) which is a hardware device. MMU uses following mechanism to convert virtual
address to physical address.
The value in the base register is added to every address generated by a user process,
which is treated as offset at the time it is sent to memory. For example, if the base
register value is 10000, then an attempt by the user to use address location 100 will be
dynamically reallocated to location 10100.
The user program deals with virtual addresses; it never sees the real physical addresses.
Static vs Dynamic Loading
The choice between Static or Dynamic Loading is to be made at the time of computer program
being developed. If you have to load your program statically, then at the time of compilation,
the complete programs will be compiled and linked without leaving any external program or
module dependency. The linker combines the object program with other necessary object
modules into an absolute program, which also includes logical addresses.
If you are writing a Dynamically loaded program, then your compiler will compile the program
and for all the modules which you want to include dynamically, only references will be
provided and rest of the work will be done at the time of execution.
At the time of loading, with static loading, the absolute program (and data) is loaded into
memory in order for execution to start.
If you are using dynamic loading, dynamic routines of the library are stored on a disk in
relocatable form and are loaded into memory only when they are needed by the program.
Static vs Dynamic Linking
As explained above, when static linking is used, the linker combines all other modules needed
by a program into a single executable program to avoid any runtime dependency.
When dynamic linking is used, it is not required to link the actual module or library with the
program, rather a reference to the dynamic module is provided at the time of compilation and
linking. Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL) in Windows and Shared Objects in Unix are good
examples of dynamic libraries.
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