Memory footprint refers to the amount of main memory that a program uses or references while running.
This includes all sorts of active memory regions like code segment containing (mostly) program instructions (and occasionally constants), data segment (both initialized and uninitialized), heap memory, call stack, plus memory required to hold any additional data structures, such as symbol tables, debugging data structures, open files, shared libraries mapped to the current process, etc., that the program ever needs while executing and will be loaded at least once during the entire run.
Larger programs have larger memory footprints. Excessive number of utility classes and methods in a programming language design would increase the footprint for API users even if they did not use non-standard plug-ins or applications. Programs themselves often do not contribute the largest portions to their own memory footprints; rather, structures introduced by the run-time environment take up most of the memory. For example, a C++ compiler inserts vtables, Type info objects and many temporary and anonymous objects that are active during a program's execution. In a Java program, the memory footprint is predominantly made up of the runtime environment in the form of Java Virtual Machine (JVM) itself that is loaded indirectly when a Java application launches.
Read more about Memory Footprint: Usage Trend
Famous quotes containing the words memory and/or footprint:
“Oh, how cruelly sweet are the echoes that start
When Memory plays an old tune on the heart!”
—Eliza Cook (1818–1889)
“There is on the earth no institution which Friendship has established; it is not taught by any religion; no scripture contains its maxims. It has no temple, nor even a solitary column. There goes a rumor that the earth is inhabited, but the shipwrecked mariner has not seen a footprint on the shore. The hunter has found only fragments of pottery and the monuments of inhabitants.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)