What does “Memory allocated at compile time” really mean?

Question

In programming languages like C and C++, people often refer to static and dynamic memory allocation. I understand the concept but the phrase \"All memory was allocated (rese

Answer 1

An executable describes what space to allocate for static variables. This allocation is done by the system, when you run the executable. So your 1kB static variable won't increase the size of the executable with 1kB:

static char[1024];

Unless of course you specify an initializer:

static char[1024] = { 1, 2, 3, 4, ... };

So, in addition to 'machine language' (i.e. CPU instructions), an executable contains a description of the required memory layout.