Malloc brk()
Question Text
When does malloc()
use brk()
?
Question Answers
brk()
is outdated,malloc()
always usesmmap()
- When it allocates a small chunk of memory
When it allocates an array
When it's working with dynamic libraries
Feedback
malloc()
uses both brk()
and mmap()
, but preffers brk()
for small chunks of memory to keep granular allocations in a contiguous area.
This way, free()
does not necessarily return the memory to the OS as it might only mark the zone as "free" within libc
's allocator and reuse it for later allocations.