Memory Layout in C

Types of memory

Memory layout in C

Whenever program is compiled five types of memories are given to the program to carry out its function

·         Text Segment

·         Initialized data segment

·         Uninitialized data segment

·         Stack

·         Heap

Text Segment-

Also known as the code segment

Contains executable instructions

Text segment is placed below stack and heap to prevent overflow

It is a read only memory so that it cannot be changed by accident

Initialize Data Segment-

Usually called Data Segment

It contains a static variables and global variables that are initialized by the program

It is a not a read only memory since it can be changed

Uninitialized Data segment-

Also known an bss segment (blog started by symbol)

It contains static and global variables which are initialized to zero or which are not explicitly initialized

Stack-

It contains the local or automatic variables

Even every memory required by the recursive functions also some from the stack memory.

Heap-

Heap memory is the segment where Dynamic memory allocation takes place

Heap area is shared by all the libraires and dynamically loaded modules in the process.

It has a disadvantage that it need to be manually freed thus leads to memory leaks or fault segment

Moreover variables allocated in stack memory are much faster to access than heap memory