Heap memory is not re-claiming.

[Jeff Donner]

>> On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 1:26 AM, V.Ravikumar
>> <ravikumar.vallabhu at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I've a daemon process and I'm allocating heap memory for big character
>> > buffers using malloc/free.
>> > Each can take 5MB.
>> >
>> > Though I freed/deleted memory allocated for the buffers, the increased
>> > memory during the allocation time is not re-claiming back.This I
>> > observed
>> > using top command.
>>
>> Yes, I think it's glibc - it may keep your memory, with the idea that
>> you'll request it again soon anyway.
>
>    If this is the case then memory should not keep on increase albeit how
> long process may run. right?

Right. That's a memory leak, or else you're just not freeing what you
think you are. It's a user-land program, right? 'valgrind' is awesome
for finding leaks and memory still allocated. If it really isn't your
program losing memory someone else will have to jump in but, I can't
imagine any reason a non-broken kernel would accumulate resources.