munmap (3p) - Linux Manuals

munmap: unmap pages of memory

PROLOG

This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME

munmap - unmap pages of memory

SYNOPSIS

#include <sys/mman.h>

int munmap(void *addr, size_t len);

DESCRIPTION

The munmap() function shall remove any mappings for those entire pages containing any part of the address space of the process starting at addr and continuing for len bytes. Further references to these pages shall result in the generation of a SIGSEGV signal to the process. If there are no mappings in the specified address range, then munmap() has no effect.

The implementation shall require that addr be a multiple of the page size {PAGESIZE}.

If a mapping to be removed was private, any modifications made in this address range shall be discarded.

Any memory locks (see mlock() and mlockall()) associated with this address range shall be removed, as if by an appropriate call to munlock().

If a mapping removed from a typed memory object causes the corresponding address range of the memory pool to be inaccessible by any process in the system except through allocatable mappings (that is, mappings of typed memory objects opened with the POSIX_TYPED_MEM_MAP_ALLOCATABLE flag), then that range of the memory pool shall become deallocated and may become available to satisfy future typed memory allocation requests.

A mapping removed from a typed memory object opened with the POSIX_TYPED_MEM_MAP_ALLOCATABLE flag shall not affect in any way the availability of that typed memory for allocation.

The behavior of this function is unspecified if the mapping was not established by a call to mmap().

RETURN VALUE

Upon successful completion, munmap() shall return 0; otherwise, it shall return -1 and set errno to indicate the error.

ERRORS

The munmap() function shall fail if:

EINVAL

Addresses in the range [addr,addr+len) are outside the valid range for the address space of a process.

EINVAL

The len argument is 0.

EINVAL

The addr argument is not a multiple of the page size as returned by sysconf().

The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES

None.

APPLICATION USAGE

The munmap() function is only supported if the Memory Mapped Files option or the Shared Memory Objects option is supported.

RATIONALE

The munmap() function corresponds to SVR4, just as the mmap() function does.

It is possible that an application has applied process memory locking to a region that contains shared memory. If this has occurred, the munmap() call ignores those locks and, if necessary, causes those locks to be removed.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

COPYRIGHT

Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .