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* The virtual address space seen by each process consists of a number of well-defined areas, each with a specific purpose. You will learn more about these areas later in the book, but it will be helpful to look briefly at each, starting with the lowest addresses and working our way up: Program code and data. Code begins at the same fixed address, followed by data locations that correspond to global C variables. The code and data areas are initialized directly from the contents of an executable object file, in our case the hello executable. You will learn more about this part of the address space when we study linking and loading in Chapter 7. Heap. The code and data areas are followed immediately by the run-time heap. Unlike the code and data areas, which are fixed in size once the process begins running, the heap expands and contracts dynamically at run time as a result of calls to C standard library routines such as malloc and free. We will study heaps in detail when we learn about managing virtual memory in Chapter 10. Shared libraries. Near the middle of the address space is an area that holds the code and data for shared libraries such as the C standard library and the math library. The notion of a shared library is a powerful, but somewhat difficult concept. You will learn how they work when we study dynamic linking in Chapter 7. Stack. At the top of the user’s virtual address space is the user stack that the compiler uses to implement function calls. Like the heap, the user stack expands and contracts dynamically during the execution of the program. In particular, each time we call a function, the stack grows. Each time we return from a function, it contracts. You will learn how the compiler uses the stack in Chapter 3. Kernel virtual memory. The kernel is the part of the operating system that is always resident in memory. The top 1/4 of the address space is reserved for the kernel. Application programs are not allowed to read or write the contents of thi