Measures the current (and peak) resident and virtual memories usage of Linux C/C++ process

getmemory.cpp

/*
 * Measures the current (and peak) resident and virtual memories
 * usage of your linux C process, in kB
 */
void getMemory( int* currRealMem,
                int* peakRealMem,
                int* currVirtMem,
                int* peakVirtMem )
{

    // stores each word in status file
    char buffer[1024] = "";

    // linux file contains this-process info
    FILE* file = fopen( "/proc/self/status", "r" );

    // read the entire file
    while ( fscanf( file, " %1023s", buffer ) == 1 ) {

        if ( strcmp( buffer, "VmRSS:" ) == 0 ) {
            fscanf( file, " %d", currRealMem );
        }
        if ( strcmp( buffer, "VmHWM:" ) == 0 ) {
            fscanf( file, " %d", peakRealMem );
        }
        if ( strcmp( buffer, "VmSize:" ) == 0 ) {
            fscanf( file, " %d", currVirtMem );
        }
        if ( strcmp( buffer, "VmPeak:" ) == 0 ) {
            fscanf( file, " %d", peakVirtMem );
        }
    }
    fclose( file );
}