Patent · US Expired

Mapped file input/output with delayed zeroing

US5920895A · kind A · utility

16Cited by
3References
17Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 24, 1995
Grant dateJul 6, 1999
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 24, 2015

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F12/1491
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The efficiency of writing files that are cached using mapped file I/O is improved by suppressing zeroing of uninitialized data in cached pages of a file until the file is mapped by a user mode thread. In an operating system where paging operations are controlled by a virtual memory manager and memory based caching using mapped file I/O is administered by a cache manager, suppressing zeroing of mapped files on writes is implemented by a set of internal operating system interfaces for communications between the virtual memory manager and the cache manager. When a file being cached is not yet mapped by a user mode thread, the cache manager tracks the extent to which a cache page of the file is written so that any uninitialized data in the cache page can later be zeroed when the file is mapped by a user mode thread.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.