Releasing Unneeded Pages

Releasing Unneeded Pages

Using the madvise() function (see the madvise(2) reference page), you can tell IRIX that a range of pages is not needed by your process. The pages remain defined in the address space, so this is not a means of reducing the need for swap space. However, IRIX puts the pages at the top of its list of pages to be reclaimed when another process (or the calling process) suffers a page fault.

The madvise() function is rarely needed by real-time programs, which are usually more concerned with keeping pages in memory than with letting them leave memory. However, there could be a use for it in special cases.

Surveys the programming interfaces used for interprocess communication, including IRIX shared memory, semaphores, and locks, and System V shared memory, semaphores, and message queues.