On Thu, 12 Sep 2002, Aaron Bannert wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 12, 2002 at 04:26:02PM -0600, Jean-Jacques Clar wrote:
> > Why will I wouldn't see my allocated memory decrease if it has been
> > freed?
>
> That's just how unix works. When malloc() needs more memory it calls
> brk or sbrk to move the heap marker up and to map a new page. There's
> no way to move that thing back down, so the output of top or ps can
> always increase.
Incorrect, you can pass negative values to sbrk (malloc
implementations use this seldomly) or allocators call munmap
to give pages back to the operating system. Either way, it
is possible that memory usage decreases.
- Sascha
