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

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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

Answer 3

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

Answer 4

top

and advanced one called

htop

are the tools to monitor any executable runing in linux system