BSS, Stack, Heap, Data, Code/Text - Where each of these start in memory?

Question

Segments of memory - BSS, Stack, Heap, Data, Code/Text (Are there any more?).

Say I have a 128MB RAM, Can someone tell me:

• How much memory is allocated for each of these memory segments?

• Where do they start? Please specify the address range or something like that for better clarity.

• What factors influence which should start where?

Answer 1

That question depends on the number of variables used. Since you did not specify what compiler or language or even operating system, that is a difficult one to pin down on! It all rests with the operating system who is responsible for the memory management of the applications. In short, there is no definite answer to this question, think about this, the compiler/linker at runtime, requests the operating system to allocate a block of memory, that allocation is dependent on how many variables there are, how big are they, the scope and usage of the variables. For instance, this simple C program, in a file called simpletest.c:

#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv){
   int num = 42;
   printf("The number is %d!\n", num);
   return 0;
}

Supposing the environment was Unix/Linux based and was compiled like this:

gcc -o simpletest simpletest.c

If you were to issue a objdump or nm on the binary image simpletest, you will see the sections of the executable, in this instance, 'bss', 'text'. Make note of the sizes of these sections, now add a int var[100]; to the above code, recompile and reissue the objdump or nm, you will find that the data section has appeared - why? because we added a variable of an array type of int, with 100 elements.

This simple exercise will prove that the sections grows, and hence the binary gets bigger, and it will also prove that you cannot pre-determine how much memory will be allocated as the runtime implementation varies from compiler to compiler and from operating system to operating system.

In short, the OS calls the shot on the memory management!

Answer 2

you can get all this information compiling your program

# gcc -o hello hello.c  // you might compile with -static for simplicity 

and then readelf:

# readelf -l hello
Elf file type is EXEC (Executable file)
Entry point 0x80480e0
There are 3 program headers, starting at offset 52

Program Headers:
  Type           Offset   VirtAddr   PhysAddr   FileSiz MemSiz  Flg Align
  LOAD           0x000000 0x08048000 0x08048000 0x55dac 0x55dac R E 0x1000
  LOAD           0x055dc0 0x0809edc0 0x0809edc0 0x01df4 0x03240 RW  0x1000
  NOTE           0x000094 0x08048094 0x08048094 0x00020 0x00020 R   0x4

Section to Segment mapping:
  Segment Sections...
   00     .init .text .fini .rodata __libc_atexit __libc_subfreeres .note.ABI-tag
   01     .data .eh_frame .got .bss
   02     .note.ABI-tag

The output shows the overall structure of hello. The first program header corresponds to the process' code segment, which will be loaded from file at offset 0x000000 into a memory region that will be mapped into the process' address space at address 0x08048000. The code segment will be 0x55dac bytes large and must be page-aligned (0x1000). This segment will comprise the .text and .rodata ELF segments discussed earlier, plus additional segments generated during the linking procedure. As expected, it's flagged read-only (R) and executable (X), but not writable (W).

The second program header corresponds to the process' data segment. Loading this segment follows the same steps mentioned above. However, note that the segment size is 0x01df4 on file and 0x03240 in memory. This is due to the .bss section, which is to be zeroed and therefore doesn't need to be present in the file. The data segment will also be page-aligned (0x1000) and will contain the .data and .bss ELF segments. It will be flagged readable and writable (RW). The third program header results from the linking procedure and is irrelevant for this discussion.

If you have a proc file system, you can check this, as long as you get "Hello World" to run long enough (hint: gdb), with the following command:

# cat /proc/`ps -C hello -o pid=`/maps
08048000-0809e000 r-xp 00000000 03:06 479202     .../hello
0809e000-080a1000 rw-p 00055000 03:06 479202     .../hello
080a1000-080a3000 rwxp 00000000 00:00 0
bffff000-c0000000 rwxp 00000000 00:00 0

The first mapped region is the process' code segment, the second and third build up the data segment (data + bss + heap), and the fourth, which has no correspondence in the ELF file, is the stack. Additional information about the running hello process can be obtained with GNU time, ps, and /proc/pid/stat.

example taken from: http://www.lisha.ufsc.br/teaching/os/exercise/hello.html