Memory map

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In computer science, a memory map is a data structure, usually residing in memory, that indicates how the computer’s memory is laid out. In the boot process of some computers, a memory map may be passed from the firmware to instruct an operating system kernel about memory layout. It contains the information regarding the size of total memory, any reserved regions and may also provide other details specific to the architecture. The term memory map also has different meanings in other contexts. It is the fastest and most flexible cache organization that uses an associative memory. The associative memory stores both the address and content of the memory word. In virtual memory implementations and memory management units, a memory map refers to page tables or hardware registers, which store the mapping between a process's virtual address space and physical memory addresses. In native debugger programs, a memory map refers to the mapping between loaded executable or library files and memory regions. These memory maps are used to resolve memory addresses (such as function pointers) to actual symbols.