Paging is a memory management technique that involves dividing a computer’s memory into fixed-size blocks called pages. Each page is then mapped to a corresponding block on the hard disk. When a program needs to access data that is not currently in memory, the operating system will swap out a page that is not currently being used to make room for the new data. This process is transparent to the user and allows programs to access large amounts of data without having to load the entire dataset into memory at once.
Paging has several advantages over other memory management techniques. First, it allows programs to access more data than can fit in physical memory. Second, it helps to improve performance by reducing the amount of time spent swapping data between memory and the hard disk. Third, it can help to prevent memory leaks by ensuring that all pages are released when they are no longer needed.