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(standards.info)Memory Usage

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Memory Usage
============

   If a program typically uses just a few meg of memory, don't bother
making any effort to reduce memory usage.  For example, if it is
impractical for other reasons to operate on files more than a few meg
long, it is reasonable to read entire input files into core to operate
on them.

   However, for programs such as `cat' or `tail', that can usefully
operate on very large files, it is important to avoid using a technique
that would artificially limit the size of files it can handle.  If a
program works by lines and could be applied to arbitrary user-supplied
input files, it should keep only a line in memory, because this is not
very hard and users will want to be able to operate on input files that
are bigger than will fit in core all at once.

   If your program creates complicated data structures, just make them
in core and give a fatal error if `malloc' returns zero.