Sponsored Content
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!
 

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Programming

FILE data type

Hi all, Can anyone tell me a little about the datatype FILE, which represents stream. What does its structure look like, and in which header file is it defined and so on... Ex : FILE *fp ; fp = fopen("filename", "w") ; (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: milhan
6 Replies

2. Programming

time_t data type-- what does start +1 mean?

Hi, I am trying to understand an very old C program. .... time_t start, end; ptr = localtime(&start); ... fprintf(out, "%-35s 01 %5s %2s %10d 1 5 /tty/M%d/%02d %24s", buffer3, job, ver, start, mach_num,atoi(buffer), asctime(ptr)); fprintf(out, "%-35s 03 %5s %2s %10d 1 5... (9 Replies)
Discussion started by: whatisthis
9 Replies

3. Programming

data type limitation

I am writing some code to do analysis on the file system (HP-UX 11.11). I am using stat(..) to get file information. My problem is that the file-size may exceed the data types defined in 'sys/stat.h' & 'sys/types.h' respectively. Thus file-sizes in the Giga-byte range are not read correctly.... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: ALTRUNVRSOFLN
2 Replies

4. AIX

Value too large to be stored in data type???

Hello, I get this message : "Value too large to be stored in data type" when I try to open a 3Gb file. Can someone helps me to resolve the problem. Thank you very much (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: limame
5 Replies

5. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Directorie listing in Human form for data sizes

I have seen it done at my job before, there is a command that will make a notepad and show the directorie path, subfolders, and size of the subfolders? But i dont want it to go lower than 2 levels for example: folder_01 10 GB subfolder_02 10 GB subfolder_03 10 GB... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: JUSSAN007
4 Replies

6. Shell Programming and Scripting

Perl data type checking

I am using perl 5.8.0. I need to check some values to see it they are floats. Our system does not have Data::Types so I can't use is_float. Is there something else that I can use? The only thing in Data is Dump.pm. I am not allowed to download anything to our system so I have to use what I have.... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: ajgwin
3 Replies

7. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Memory allocation for float data type

Dear All, How internally memory allocated when we declare the float data type. how many bytes allocated for decimal and how many bytes for fraction. kindly help me in this regards. (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: rajamohan
2 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

Can I split a 10GB file into 1 GB sizes using my repeating data pattern

I'm not a unix guy so excuses my ignorance... I'm the database ETL guy. I'm trying to be proactive and devise a plan B for a ETL process where I expect a file 10X larger than what I process daily for a recast job. The ETL may handle it but I just don't know. This file may need to be split... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: john091
3 Replies

9. Web Development

Data type to use for prices with commas

Hi everybody, I`m very new with PHP and Databases and I having the follow issue with prices data.. The original information is in CSV files. The prices have formatted with commas and dots as follow: 12,300.99 -->(thousands separated by commas) 3,500.25 -->(thousands separated... (10 Replies)
Discussion started by: cgkmal
10 Replies

10. Programming

Incompatible data type fpos_t in C

This is from a program I wrote over in 1998 that I am trying to compile on a linux machine: void write_line (FILE *fp, int rec_no, line_rec *arec) { fpos_t woffset; woffset = (rec_no - 1) * sizeof(line_rec); fsetpos(fp,&woffset); fwrite(arec,sizeof(line_rec),1,fp); }On the line... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: wbport
2 Replies
stack(n)							Tcl Data Structures							  stack(n)

NAME
stack - Create and manipulate stack objects SYNOPSIS
package require Tcl 8.2 package require struct ?1.2.1? stackName option ?arg arg ...? stackName clear stackName destroy stackName peek ?count? stackName pop ?count? stackName push item ?item ...? stackName size DESCRIPTION
The ::struct::stack command creates a new stack object with an associated global Tcl command whose name is stackName. This command may be used to invoke various operations on the stack. It has the following general form: stackName option ?arg arg ...? Option and the args determine the exact behavior of the command. The following commands are possible for stack objects: stackName clear Remove all items from the stack. stackName destroy Destroy the stack, including its storage space and associated command. stackName peek ?count? Return the top count items of the stack, without removing them from the stack. If count is not specified, it defaults to 1. If count is 1, the result is a simple string; otherwise, it is a list. If specified, count must be greater than or equal to 1. If there are no items on the stack, this command will return count empty strings. stackName pop ?count? Return the top count items of the stack, and remove them from the stack. If count is not specified, it defaults to 1. If count is 1, the result is a simple string; otherwise, it is a list. If specified, count must be greater than or equal to 1. If there are no items on the stack, this command will return count empty strings. stackName push item ?item ...? Push the item or items specified onto the stack. If more than one item is given, they will be pushed in the order they are listed. stackName size Return the number of items on the stack. KEYWORDS
queue, matrix, tree, graph struct 1.2.1 stack(n)
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 09:02 PM.
Unix & Linux Forums Content Copyright 1993-2022. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy