Address Binding
Address binding helps allocate a physical memory location to a logical pointer by associating a physical address to the logical address or the virtual address.
It is a part of the computer memory management and is performed by the operating system on the behalf of applications that need access to the memory.
Address Binding can be divided into three types:
- Compile time address binding
- Load time address binding.
- Execution time address binding
Compile time address binding
Compile time address binding allocates a space in the memory to the machine code of the computer when the program is compiled.
In other words, if the compiler is responsible for address binding, then it is known as compiler time address binding. The compiler interacts with the OS to perform the address binding.
It is done before loading the program in the computer memory.
Load time address binding
Load time address binding is done after loading the program in the memory.
It is done by the OS memory manager or the loader.
Execution time address binding
Execution time address binding is mostly only applicable to variables and is usually used for script binding, which generally doesn’t get compiled.
It is postponed even after loading the program into the memory. The program keeps changing the memory location until the time of program execution.
Dynamic address binding is not done until program execution.
In majority of the Operating System, like Windows and Linux, dynamic address binding, dynamic loading, and dynamic linking is used.
Address Binding