Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A memory-mapped file is a segment of virtual memory [1] that has been assigned a direct byte-for-byte correlation with some portion of a file or file-like resource. This resource is typically a file that is physically present on disk, but can also be a device, shared memory object, or other resource that an operating system can reference through a file descriptor.
The main difference between System V shared memory (shmem) and memory mapped I/O (mmap) is that System V shared memory is persistent: unless explicitly removed by a process, it is kept in memory and remains available until the system is shut down. mmap'd memory is not persistent between application executions (unless it is backed by a file).
POSIX also provides the mmap API for mapping files into memory; a mapping can be shared, allowing the file's contents to be used as shared memory. Linux distributions based on the 2.6 kernel and later offer /dev/shm as shared memory in the form of a RAM disk , more specifically as a world-writable directory (a directory in which every user of ...
A process can store data in memory-mapped files on memory-backed file systems, such as the tmpfs file system or file systems on a RAM drive, and map files into and out of the address space as needed. A set of processes may still depend upon the enhanced security features page-based isolation may bring to a multitasking environment.
In computing, memory mapping may refer to: Memory-mapped file , also known as mmap() Memory-mapped I/O , an alternative to port I/O; a communication between CPU and peripheral device using the same instructions, and same bus, as between CPU and memory
Memory-mapped I/O is preferred in IA-32 and x86-64 based architectures because the instructions that perform port-based I/O are limited to one register: EAX, AX, and AL are the only registers that data can be moved into or out of, and either a byte-sized immediate value in the instruction or a value in register DX determines which port is the source or destination port of the transfer.
shared memory and memory mapped files. Some parts of address space may be not mapped at all. Some systems have a "split" memory architecture where machine code, constants, and data are in different locations, and may have different address sizes.
The idea behind tmpfs is similar in concept to a RAM disk, in that both provide a file system stored in volatile memory; however, the implementations are different. While tmpfs is implemented at the logical file system layer, a RAM disk is implemented at the physical file system layer. In other words, a RAM disk is a virtual block device with a ...