What is the difference between a segmentation fault and a bus error?

What is the difference between a segmentation fault and a bus error?

A segmentation fault occurs when a program tries to access a memory segment that it's not allowed to, while a bus error happens when a program tries to access memory in a way that the hardware cannot physically address.

Can you give me examples of when each might occur?

Sure! A segmentation fault might occur if a program tries to read from a null pointer. A bus error could occur if a program tries to read from an unaligned memory address.

How can I debug these errors?

You can use debugging tools like gdb for segmentation faults to trace the source of the error. For bus errors, checking memory alignment and access patterns can help.

Are these errors specific to certain programming languages?

No, both segmentation faults and bus errors can occur in various programming languages, especially those that allow direct memory access like C and C++.