Does Solaris 2.6 or 8 reclaim heap

[Guest_imported]

Hi,

Does Solaris 2.6 or 8 reclaim heap memory from a process without using any specific system calls?
If it does, would anyone know what the algorithm is?

 

[Guest_imported]

Dear Andrew,

your question is a bit unclear.
Do you mean if malloc(3C)/free(3C) combination does the
same as mmap(2)/unmap(2) in freeing memory from the
process' address space?

Anyway plain free(3C) according to the man:
> After free() is executed, this space is made available
> for further allocation by the application, though not
> returned to the system. Memory is returned to the system
> only upon termination of the application.

Anyway if your looking in general on how Solaris deals with
memory then

http://sunsite.nstu.nsk.su/sunworldonline/swol-10-1995/swol-10-perf.html

is good start.

http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/show.pl?target=content/content8

mentions a couple of things about the evolution of memory
allocation (the current method of Solaris 8 is known as
"cyclical page cache" in contrast to the "least recently
used" scheme and its derivatives for earlier versions).

Anyway it would be better if you rephrased the question.

Regards.

 

[Guest_imported]

Hi,

I was thinking in terms of memory release via free. Thanks, you've answered my question.

cheers,
Andrew