In computer science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

, a memory map is a structure of data (which usually resides in memory itself) that indicates how memory is laid out. Memory maps can have a different meaning in different parts of the operating system.

In the boot process

Booting

In computing, booting is a process that begins when a user turns on a computer system and prepares the computer to perform its normal operations. On modern computers, this typically involves loading and starting an operating system. The boot sequence is the initial set of operations that the...

, a memory map is passed on from the firmware

Firmware

In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices...

 in order to instruct an operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 kernel about memory layout. It contains the information regarding the size of total memory, any reserved regions and may also provide other details specific to the architecture.

In virtual memory

Virtual memory

In computing, virtual memory is a memory management technique developed for multitasking kernels. This technique virtualizes a computer architecture's various forms of computer data storage , allowing a program to be designed as though there is only one kind of memory, "virtual" memory, which...

 implementations and memory management unit

Memory management unit

A memory management unit , sometimes called paged memory management unit , is a computer hardware component responsible for handling accesses to memory requested by the CPU...

s, a memory map refers page table

Page table

A page table is the data structure used by a virtual memory system in a computer operating system to store the mapping between virtual addresses and physical addresses. Virtual addresses are those unique to the accessing process...

s, which store the mapping between a certain process's virtual memory layout and how that space relates to physical memory addresses.

In native debugger

Debugger

A debugger or debugging tool is a computer program that is used to test and debug other programs . The code to be examined might alternatively be running on an instruction set simulator , a technique that allows great power in its ability to halt when specific conditions are encountered but which...

 programs, a memory map refers to the mapping between loaded executable/library files and memory regions. These memory maps are used to resolve memory address

Memory address

A digital computer's memory, more specifically main memory, consists of many memory locations, each having a memory address, a number, analogous to a street address, at which computer programs store and retrieve, machine code or data. Most application programs do not directly read and write to...

es (such as function pointer

Function pointer

A function pointer is a type of pointer in C, C++, D, and other C-like programming languages, and Fortran 2003. When dereferenced, a function pointer can be used to invoke a function and pass it arguments just like a normal function...

s) to actual symbols.