Force free() to return malloc memory back to OS

Question

Seems like even after I free all the memory for a Linux process that was allocated by malloc(), memory is still reserved for the process and not returned to the

Answer 1

The only reliable and portable way to have the OS reclaim memory is to exit the process and restart it again, restoring any state you need to continue.

Of course, writing your own malloc/free implementation using brk/sbrk according to your needs is the other option.