On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 1:59 AM, Bill Bumgarner <b...@mac.com> wrote: > On Jan 14, 2009, at 9:40 PM, Michael Ash wrote: >> >> On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 5:31 PM, Tobias Zimmerman <automa...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >>> >>> I know there are people who will say "VSIZE doesn't matter if there is no >>> paging", >> >> This is kind of like that famous question, "Have you stopped beating >> your wife?" VSIZE doesn't matter, period. Paging doesn't enter into >> it. >> >>> but if I ever sought to distribute my app people will not want to >>> install a statusitem that looks like a memory hog. >> >> The solution there is to educate the foolish people who think that >> VSIZE is any indication of being a "memory hog", not to artificially >> reduce a number that has no bearing on any kind of system resource >> usage. > > Generally true (though I might choose a slightly different descriptor of the > uselessness), but not always. > > VSIZE *can* be a very useful indication that an application is consuming > address space. This is not the same as consuming memory and, to the user, > is an utterly useless distinction to make. > > For example, an application's VSIZE might be growing over time because it is > mmap()'ing a bunch of files (or a few small files). If the app fails to > unmap, the VSIZE will grow and the app may likely exhaust its address space > without any paging activity. > > Example: for applications that are processing large files -- ID3 tag editors > come to mind -- watching the VSIZE can be a useful way of determining if > your code is properly managing the mapping of said files.
All good points. However what I meant by "system resources" was that VSIZE, while it may indicate misbehavior in your process, never indicates misbehavior that could affect the system as a whole. An app with a runaway RSIZE can quickly run you into swap hell. An app with runaway CPU usage can make everything else slow. But VSIZE is at most an internal problem. That's all I meant to indicate. Mike _______________________________________________ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
