Difference between logical addresses, and physical addresses?

Question

I am reading Operating Systems Concept and I am on the 8th chapter! However I could use some clarification, or reassurance that my understanding is correct.

Logical

Answer 1

A logical address is a reference to memory location independent of the current assignment of data to memory. A physical address or absolute address is an actual location in main memory.

It is in chapter 7.2 of Stallings.

Answer 2

I found a article about Logical vs Physical Address in Operating System, which clearly explains about this.

Logical Address is generated by CPU while a program is running. The logical address is virtual address as it does not exist physically therefore it is also known as Virtual Address. This address is used as a reference to access the physical memory location by CPU. The term Logical Address Space is used for the set of all logical addresses generated by a programs perspective. The hardware device called Memory-Management Unit is used for mapping logical address to its corresponding physical address.

Physical Address identifies a physical location of required data in a memory. The user never directly deals with the physical address but can access by its corresponding logical address. The user program generates the logical address and thinks that the program is running in this logical address but the program needs physical memory for its execution therefore the logical address must be mapped to the physical address bu MMU before they are used. The term Physical Address Space is used for all physical addresses corresponding to the logical addresses in a Logical address space.

Source: www.geeksforgeeks.org

Answer 3

1. An address generated by the CPU is commonly referred to as a logical address. The set of all logical addresses generated by a program is known as logical address space. Whereas, an address seen by the memory unit- that is, the one loaded into the memory-address register of the memory- is commonly referred to as physical address. The set of all physical addresses corresponding to the logical addresses is known as physical address space.
2. The compile-time and load-time address-binding methods generate identical logical and physical addresses. However, in the execution-time address-binding scheme, the logical and physical-address spaces differ.
3. The user program never sees the physical addresses. The program creates a pointer to a logical address, say 346, stores it in memory, manipulate it, compares it to other logical addresses- all as the number 346. Only when a logical address is used as memory address, it is relocated relative to the base/relocation register. The memory-mapping hardware device called the memory- management unit(MMU) converts logical addresses into physical addresses.
4. Logical addresses range from 0 to max. User program that generates logical address thinks that the process runs in locations 0 to max. Logical addresses must be mapped to physical addresses before they are used. Physical addresses range from (R+0) to (R + max) for a base/relocation register value R.
5. Example: Mapping from logical to physical addresses using memory management unit (MMU) and relocation/base register The value in relocation/base register is added to every logical address generated by a user process, at the time it is sent to memory, to generate corresponding physical address. In the above figure, base/ relocation value is 14000, then an attempt by the user to access the location 346 is mapped to 14346.