how to know the memory footprint of my binary executable

Question

I wonder if there is a way to know the memory footprint of my binary executable coded in C language.

informations about binary executable : compiled with toolchain of OpenWrt branch (Attitude Adjustment) and its architecture is x86

Do you want to know it's static memory size or it's memory usage during execution? — Shahbaz, Mar 18 '14 at 15:10

Olaf Dietsche · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-22T16:47:30.077

17

On a Linux/Unix system, you can use the size command for this, e.g. on my Ubuntu system

size /bin/sh
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
 102134    1776   11272  115182   1c1ee /bin/sh

Since this is OpenWrt, if you have a different architecture, e.g. MIPS or ARM or something else, you must pick the size command of the appropriate toolchain, of course.

The sections have the following meaning

text denotes the code size of the executable
data is initialized data section, e.g. variables, like int v = 17; or char name[] = "Tom";
bss is the uninitialized or simply 0 initiailized section, int a; or double amount;
dec is the overall size, in this case 102134 + 1776 + 11272 = 115182
hex finally is also the overall size, as a hex value 1c1ee = 115182

But this does not include the stack or any dynamic heap memory. To see the overall memory usage at runtime, you must look at ps or top output.

edited Feb 22 '18 at 16:47

answered Mar 18 '14 at 11:34

Olaf Dietsche

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could you explain more the meaning of each parameter (text; data; bss; dec; hex;) – Anis_Stack Mar 18 '14 at 13:41
Are you sure that it works with C program ? I tryed to do `size path/to/program.c` and I get the error "unkonw format" – Bastienm Feb 22 '18 at 16:28
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@Bastienm No, this works with binary objects only. So when you compile the C source, e.g. `gcc -c path/to/program.c` you can get the size with `size path/to/program.o`. – Olaf Dietsche Feb 22 '18 at 16:37
I just understood I had to use it with the binary sorry... Thanks ! – Bastienm Feb 22 '18 at 16:47

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 18 '14 at 15:27

4

To understand your memory usage during runtime, on a Linux system you can use valgrind's memcheck tool.

answered Mar 18 '14 at 15:27

Shahbaz

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 05 '18 at 10:17

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Use the Command size <binary> to get the memory footprint of your binary executable. Check the size manual (man size) for more information.

answered Jul 05 '18 at 10:17

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 17 '15 at 13:11

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top

and advanced one called

htop

are the tools to monitor any executable runing in linux system

edited Apr 17 '15 at 13:11

Opal

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answered Apr 17 '15 at 12:56

voter

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how to know the memory footprint of my binary executable

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