Contiguous address spaces

[Peter da Silva]

In article <1988Oct17.111614.8377 at ateng.ateng.com>, chip at ateng.ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
> (Thanks, Peter, for doing my homework.)

> According to peter at ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva):
> >[System V documentation on sbrk() and brk()]
> >as much as says that [allocated memory]'s contiguous.

> I agree, that's what it says.  However...

> I would consider the System V docs to be in error.

Oh, I agree with you. As I went on to say, even the Microsoft docs are
too restrictive. After all, there's no reason that memory has to
be allocated in a monotonically increasing fashion. I'm sure there is
a machine out there that can run UNIX that has for example, pools of
different sized segments (or uses high bits of the segment id to give
you segment size, which is much the same thing). Alternatively, you could
be running in an shared address space with memory allocated from a common
pool (note that this doesn't imply an unprotected address space).

> But since Unix is now written on and for 32-bit processors, I don't expect
> AT&T to make doc changes required for the '286.

Well, you could stick to small-model only. (hides behind nearby copy of the
Bourne shell source).
-- 
Peter da Silva  `-_-'  Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
"Have you hugged  U  your wolf today?"            peter at ficc.uu.net
Disclaimer: I am here by the will of the people and I am not
	    leaving until I get my raincoat back.