What is a page table in computational architecture?

In computational architecture, a page table is a data structure used by a computer's operating system to help manage virtual memory. It keeps track of the physical memory locations that correspond to each virtual memory address used by a program. When a program accesses a virtual memory address, the operating system consults the page table to determine which physical memory location corresponds to that address and retrieves or stores data accordingly. Page tables are an important part of virtual memory management, which allows computers to use more memory than they actually have by temporarily storing data on disk instead of in physical memory.

Publication date: