What Is Segmentation Fault (Segfault)?

If you have ever heard the phrase "segmentation fault," you might have wondered, "What does that mean? Is it an error in my car?" Moreover, you would be right—or at least half-right. Segmentation faults are a mistake returned by hardware with a memory defense that tells the operating system that a memory access violation has occurred. It happens because a process or program tries to access memory that is not assigned. Sometimes, when you try to access a memory that is not given to you, you get a segmentation fault; You can also get a segmentation fault if you try to read or write to a memory address without first checking whether there is anything at that address. It is not always obvious what caused a segfault—the operating system knows something went wrong when it tried to access some data, so it gives up and signals an error back in your direction. A segmentation fault occurs in a computer program when it tries to give access to memory that is not allocated for it. It is called a "segmentation fault" because the program must request access from the operating system, like telling the system: "Hey! I need space in memory!" The operating system divides memory into "segments" and gives each process its chunk. Each process is allowed to touch only its segment. If a process tries to connect another segment's memory, it will be denied access by the operating system and throw an error—a segmentation fault! A segmentation fault is an error that occurs when a program attempts to access memory that it does not have the right to access. The default signal handler for a segmentation fault is to terminate the offending process abnormally, called a crash. The other option is for the OS to force a core dump, which means recording the state of all programs in memory before terminating them. If you want your program to recover segmentation faults without crashing or forcing a core dump, you can create and install your custom signal handler.