If you're not interested in parsing a dump from /proc/meminfo, check out sysinfo():
Code:
int sysinfo(struct sysinfo *info);
struct sysinfo {
long uptime; /* Seconds since boot */
unsigned long loads[3]; /* 1, 5, and 15 minute load averages */
unsigned long totalram; /* Total usable main memory size */
unsigned long freeram; /* Available memory size */
unsigned long sharedram; /* Amount of shared memory */
unsigned long bufferram; /* Memory used by buffers */
unsigned long totalswap; /* Total swap space size */
unsigned long freeswap; /* swap space still available */
unsigned short procs; /* Number of current processes */
unsigned long totalhigh; /* Total high memory size */
unsigned long freehigh; /* Available high memory size */
unsigned int mem_unit; /* Memory unit size in bytes */
char _f[20-2*sizeof(long)-sizeof(int)]; /* Padding for libc5 */
};
sysinfo() is Linux specific, and the struct I included is for kernel versions 2.3.23 and later (assuming your platform is i386). Check the sysinfo(2) man page for details on the sysinfo struct for earlier versions of the kernel.