getrusage

[Subhendu Ghatak]

Hello,

  I need to use getrusage() to measure the working set size of a program.
  The getrusage() man page says that "The way resident set size is calculated
is an approximation, and could misrepresent the true resident set size"

1. How exactly is the resident set size calculated by getrusage() ?

2. Why might this be a misrepresentation of the true resident set size ?

3. If I take a number of readings and then take the mean, would that be a
   better approximation of the true resident set size ?

Thanks for your interest.
Could the answer, if one is forthcoming, please be e-mailed to
ghatak at cs.utk.edu please ? That would be appreciated. But a post on this
bulletin board is fine too. I will peek in here every now and then.

With regards to all,
Subhendu Ghatak
ghatak at cs.utk.edu