Are some allocators lazy?

Question

I wrote a C program in Linux that mallocs memory, ran it in a loop, and TOP didn\'t show any memory consumption.

then I\'ve done something with that memory, and TOP

Answer 1

Yes, the memory isn't mapped into your memoryspace unless you touch it. mallocing memory will only setup the paging tables so they know when you get a pagefault in the allocated memory, the memory should be mapped in.