HI
I would like to start a program (memtester, I allready have it) and the first thing is that program has to display amount of used and free memory, and then you enter amount of memory to test. The only thing is, that I don't really know to get that amount of free and used memory. In linux, function free -m displays that(more than that) and the data is available on /proc/meminfo. I don't really want to use system function, because it doesn't work well.
Please help me.
Have a nice Day
Matt
What is the problem with opening /proc/meminfo and reading its contents?
There is no portable way of determining the info you need, so you're forced to implement platform specific methods to get the information.
How can I implement it in the program-I have memtester and have to write a line that would display information of ram and program would run forward. So, when program starts, displays data from meminfo and starts to check the ram without me pressing a button(I have base.txt,from where program reads parameters and can insert amount of memory checked there).
Have a nice Day
Matt
open /proc/meminfo with fopen
read each line with fgets
compare the start of the line with strncmp to find the line(s) of data you're interested in.
Use sscanf to grab the numeric value(s)
display the value(s) to the user
bad... bad... somehow th os gets ram capacity to. so there must be a way(probally some asm code or something :P)
obviously, but why would you use assembly language if the operating system provides a standard (for that OS) facility for getting the information you require?
If you use assembly language you still run into the same portability problems (and more). It will vary from architecture to architecture, and the OS may not allow a user-space program to access such resources.
cwr is right..
free just parses /proc/meminfo for its operation..
as far as what detects and writes meminfo on a lower level, that would probably be the kernel..
and as cwr asked, why would you want to do it on your own after its has already been done better
I think you're going to run into a bigger, underlying problem. Linux is only going to give your program a certain amount of memory to work with. Going out of those bounds will cause your program to segfault. Not only that, but the address range you're given is for virtual memory and doesn't correspond to actual physical memory addresses. All of this is to prevent you from stomping on memory that is being used by other programs and the OS itself.
This is why programs like memtest86 require you to run it outside of any OS influence.
If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything.
If you want to start another program without using system(), see the FAQ.HI
I would like to start a program (memtester, I allready have it) and the first thing is that program has to display amount of used and free memory, and then you enter amount of memory to test. The only thing is, that I don't really know to get that amount of free and used memory. In linux, function free -m displays that(more than that) and the data is available on /proc/meminfo. I don't really want to use system function, because it doesn't work well.
Please help me.
dwk
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