Re: [Valgrind-users] understanding massif output when run against a simple executable

[Eliot M. <mo...@cs...>]

On 5/14/2014 2:21 PM, Rob Taylor wrote:
> Thank you Milian Wolff and Eliot Moss,

Typical users of tools like valgrind have more background in
how all this works -- not a criticism of you, just a difference
in expectation.

The volume of code that results from compiling a program
consisting of a main function that simply returns is quite
small.  It is stored on disk in the executable file produced
by the C compiling and linking process.  That file also
describes any global / static storage needed for the program.
When a process is created to run the program, the operating
system sets up an area in low memory (not the stack) for
that data.  Local / automatic (in C terminology) variables
are allocated in the stack, and done so by each function as
you enter the function.  The operating system grows the stack
(from high addresses toward lower ones) automatically.

It is also possible to allocate, and "free", memory on request
using library functions such as malloc and free.

Any libraries used will be linked in (connected to your code)
on demand, and they may also have static data areas and may
malloc/free data as well.

You may benefit from finding documentation or a textbook about
how compiling, linking, loading, etc., works for C programs in
Unix/Linux, etc.  (The Windows world is similar, though of course
different in some details.)

Regards -- Eliot Moss