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Full Discussion: help with data type sizes
Top Forums Programming help with data type sizes Post 302488775 by DGPickett on Tuesday 18th of January 2011 11:14:59 AM
Old 01-18-2011
Yes, people love to argue with the term "heap". Yackety yack, but it does not improve functional understanding.

Everything but the stack comes out of the address space at the bottom, starting with code load, initial dynamic library load (which is mmap()), globals, statics; all as the sections they are in are encountered, and then dynamic additions: ld() calls laying down dynamically linked (again via mmap()), malloc/calloc/realloc(), explicit mmap(), object new, etc. If you mmap(), the files under this VM are not the swap, but the mmap()'d file's area. Everyone executes the same RAM pages of /lib/libc.so, for instance, but possibly at different local VM offsets.

The stack grows down from the top of the address space, with subroutine parameters, automatic variables, allloca() calls (deprecated but deliciously cheap since return does an implicit free()). While automatic arrays are stored here, automatic pointers are here but initialization objects they point to are mostly not here. Space is allocated with calls and automatic declarations and freed with return, and the return value overwrites/redefines the 'top' of the stack. The language metaphors of the stack like tops are "heap-esque", since it is a metaphor for a stack of sheets of paper, but it was handy to allocate it down from the top. Most systems have CPU binary info on the same stack, to restore state on return. Sometimes registers are pushed on call and restored on return. This way, each lower level subroutine gets the free use of registers it needs without first saving and finally restoring the content, when the content might be worthless. Compilers can assign call/return parameters to registers for the call of the bottom level subroutines, saving RAM activity on the stack in the inner parts of loops.

Sometimes the CPU hardware stack is not friendly to programmer data, and the stack is realloc()'d on the heap, and so grows upward.

A system might have an odd allocation scheme where the VM is subdivided into pieces that can all grow independently from the bottom without the restriction of items being allocated in the way. Some systems use segmentation, where the virtual memory is divided into N separate spaces. The problem is, usually these spaces are not big enough, or too few, and the schemes usually shrink the segment space when they devote address bits to the segment number. The x86 segmentation, as I recall, can have 16384 segments, half nominally for the system, and they span a million either bytes or 4KB pages, but in the latter case length is enforced only to the page. In unsegmented space, a really bad offset on a pointer to the stack can look into a legally readable part of the heap. UNIX generally always uses unsegmented space.

Yes, comparing addresses of items not in the same array is nonsense, except as research, for instance if you desire to do some raw binary i/o. Even then, it is nicer to make a struct or object for such purposes, using #pragma pack if you dislike the amount of padding/alignment. Beware of the other-endian systems!
 

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GET_END(3)						     Library Functions Manual							GET_END(3)

NAME
get_end, get_etext, get_edata - get values of UNIX link editor defined symbols SYNOPSIS
#include <mach-o/getsect.h> unsigned long get_end(); unsigned long get_etext(); unsigned long get_edata(); DESCRIPTION
These routines provide a stopgap measure to programs that use the UNIX link-editor defined symbols. Use of these routines is very strongly discouraged. The problem is that any program that is using UNIX link editor defined symbols (_end, _etext or _edata) is making assumptions that the program has the memory layout of a UNIX program. This is an incorrect assumption for a program built by the Mach-O link editor. The reason that these routines are provided is that if very minimal assumptions about the layout are used and the default format and memory layout of the Mach-O link editor is used to build the pro- gram, some things may work by using the values returned by these routines in place of the addresses of their UNIX link-editor defined sym- bols. So use at your own risk, and only if you know what your doing. Or better yet, convert the program to use the appropriate Mach or Mach-O functions. If you are trying to allocate memory use vm_allocate(2), if you are trying to find out about your address space use vm_region(2) and if you are trying to find out where your program is loaded use the dyld(3) functions. The values of the UNIX link-editor defined symbols _etext, _edata and _end are returned by the routines get_etext, get_edata, and get_end respectively. In a Mach-O file they have the following values: get_etext returns the first address after the (__TEXT,__text) section, note this my or may not be the only section in the __TEXT segment. get_edata returns the first address after the (__DATA,__data) section, note this my or may not be the last non-zero fill section in the __DATA segment. get_end returns the first address after the last segment in the executable, note a shared library may be loaded at this address. SEE ALSO
ld(1), dyld(3) Apple Computer, Inc. April 10, 1998 GET_END(3)
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