I recently presented arguments for and against using dynamic memory allocation in C and C++ programs. 1 I do agree that truly safety-critical systems should avoid using dynamic allocation because the ...

Dealing with dynamic memory traditionally has been one of the most awkward issues of C and C++ programming. It is not surprising that some supposedly easier languages, such as Java, have introduced ...

Unfortunately for kernel developers, allocating memory in the kernel is not as simple as allocating memory in user space. A number of factors contribute to the complication, among them: The kernel is ...

“Fragmented memory” describes all of a system’s unusable free memory. These resources remain unused because the memory allocator responsible for allocating them cannot make the memory available. This ...

Reserving memory for specific purposes. At startup, operating systems and applications reserve fixed amounts of memory (RAM) and may allocate more as needed. Although a virtual memory function ...