[techtalk] Re: [grrltalk] extremely new

Mary Gardiner mary at creative.net.au
Fri Sep 1 11:02:15 EST 2000


On Thu, Aug 31, 2000 at 04:35:03PM -0700, grpnurd at linuxfreemail.com wrote:
> I forgot to ask in my last post - what is a segmentation fault?

In short (because I don't know much about the kernel), it's the signal the
kernel sends a process when it's eating into memory that the kernel didn't
give it. If it's a program of mine dying with a segfault I've stuffed up
the memory management (malloc/free, new/delete in C/C++
respectively) somewhere.

It's pretty much the same thing in other programs, just happens less often
(at least if you're using a stable).

Basically it's the OS putting the brakes on a (possibly) out of control
program before it eats into other processes.

All corrections and expansions most welcome.

Mary,
who should know more about kernel internals... one day.

CC to techtalk (the technical mailing list full of friendly people who
know more than I do).





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