Editing Page table (section)

{{Short description|Data structure that maps virtual addresses with physical addresses}}
[[File:Virtual address space and physical address space relationship.svg|thumb|right|upright=2|Relationship between pages addressed by virtual addresses and the pages in physical memory, within a simple address space scheme. Physical memory can contain pages belonging to many processes. Pages can be held on disk if seldom used, or if physical memory is full. In the diagram above, some pages are not in physical memory.]]

A '''page table''' is a [[data structure]] used by a [[virtual memory]] system in a [[computer]] to store mappings between [[virtual address]]es and [[physical address]]es. Virtual addresses are used by the program executed by the accessing [[Process (computing)|process]], while physical addresses are used by the hardware, or more specifically, by the [[random-access memory]] (RAM) subsystem. The page table is a key component of [[virtual address translation]] that is necessary to access [[Data (computing)|data]] in memory.  The page table is set up by the computer's [[operating system]], and may be read and written during the virtual address translation process by the [[memory management unit]] or by low-level system software or firmware.