Question

what is meant by memory mapping?

Answer 1

I suspect it refers to using mmap(), which is a POSIX function that maps a file into system memory. It can be used as a way to read/write from/to a file with on-demand paging without needing to implement the paging yourself. It maps a section of the applications address space to a file. This is known as memory-mapped I/O.

More generally, it would mean mapping a section of a virtual address space to a different section (or maybe even a different address space). Read and write operations to the mapped area are redirected to whatever destination the area was mapped to.

Answer 2

@opie: He/she has asked several Assembly questions so I would say your second definition is more relevant.