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Efficient Interprocess Communication Using Shared Memory
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Comer, Douglas Munson, Steven B. |
| Copyright Year | 1988 |
| Abstract | Multitasking operating systems allow multiple application programs to execute concurrently without interference. Each task generates addresses starting at zero and the operating system uses memory management hardware to map each task's addresses into a unique part of physical memory. The memory management unit maps all the addresses a task generates into an area of physical memory reserved for that task; one task carmot accidentally read or alter the memory assigned to another wk. Only the operating system itself can access unmapped physical memory. Isolation of tasks makes it easy to write or debug a given application program but it makes sharing memory among multiple tasks impossible. Thus, when tasks need to communicate, one task must ask the operating system to copy the data from its address space to another task's address space. This article reports the results of a research project that is exploring how to support memory sharing among multiple tasks. The scheme described here uses convenlional memory management hardware in a new way. It has all the advantages of task isolation, but allows cooperating sets of tasks to share parts of their address spaces. The chief advantage of our scheme is that it pennits tasks to share objects that contain pointers (addresses) like linked lists, even though each task usually interprets memory addresses privately. In our scheme, a task dynamically establishes an area of memory to be shared and grants other tasks access to that area. Access to objects in the shared area is no more expensive than access to objects in any other pan: of memory. • This work was supported in part by granlS from the National Science FOWldation's Office of Advanced Scientific Computing (NSF-851·8369), with additional support from Digital Equipment Corporation, CSNET, AIT Foundation and Purdue Univen;ity |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1639&context=cstech&httpsredir=1&referer= |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1639&context=cstech |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1639&context=cstech |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
