Subj : Linux Posix Threads: Memory consumption
To   : comp.programming.threads
From : saraneus
Date : Thu Mar 31 2005 06:04 am

Hi folks!

I dont speak English very well, I'm from Germany, but I'll try :)

I'm programming a server daemon being a chat server application under
Linux kernel 2.4.x with GNU C and the Posix Threads library, and I
wonder if a thread itself consumes memory being not freed, wenn the
thread terminates.

For every client's connection there is created a thread to handle it. I
was surprised at "top" saying, that all the threads consume more and
more memory, even when the threads are terminated - by just returning.
To debug it I reduced the code to just create threads and do nothing -
the thread's function is empty, so the thread returns very soon.
Though, "top" tells me there was more and more memory consumption in
the "%MEM" column. That amount of memory stays, even if the threads are
returning and only the main thread (and a so called "controlling
thread") is still there.

I use dynamic memory allocation, but mtrace doesn't find any leak.

Is this a normal effect?
Do I have to take care of something special?

.