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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.std.unix
Subject: Re: Finding physical memory size
Message-ID: <16470@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 2 Jan 91 01:59:35 GMT
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Submitted-by: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)

In article <16397@cs.utexas.edu> jgd@csd4.csd.uwm.edu writes:
>Our CONVEX system, which claims POSIX compliance, has a system call
>that returns "system configuration" information...

It is important to understand that "POSIX compliant" invariably means
"POSIX superset", since many significant functions are not part of the
current POSIX standard, 1003.1.  There is no POSIX `getsysinfo' call.
The closest you get is `sysconf()', which can be used to ask about a
few things like the maximum number of open files.  None of the things
you mention are in the list.

>	c) How does one interrogate the system, in a 'standard' way,
>	   to determine physical memory size?   (My initial guess is
>	   that the answer will be "You don't.")

Correct.  In any case, it is typically not a very useful piece of
information, since there is no simple correlation between the size of
physical memory and how much your program is allowed to use.
-- 
"The average pointer, statistically,    |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry

Volume-Number: Volume 22, Number 52