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Course System Programming - Chapter 5

The document discusses shared memory, which allows processes to share a single chunk of memory to communicate. It describes creating and connecting to a shared memory segment, getting a pointer to the segment, reading from and writing to the segment, and detaching from and deleting the segment when done. The document also lists some pros and cons of using shared memory.

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Varnel Rick
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
5 views

Course System Programming - Chapter 5

The document discusses shared memory, which allows processes to share a single chunk of memory to communicate. It describes creating and connecting to a shared memory segment, getting a pointer to the segment, reading from and writing to the segment, and detaching from and deleting the segment when done. The document also lists some pros and cons of using shared memory.

Uploaded by

Varnel Rick
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Chapitre V SHARED MEMORY

Shared Memory Segment


• What is shared memory?
– Shared memory (SHM) is one method of inter-
process communication (IPC) whereby 2 or more
processes share a single chunk of memory to
communicate.
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Memory Segment

Process 1 Process 2 … Process n


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Steps of Shared Memory IPC


1. Creating the segment and connecting
2. Getting a pointer to the segment
3. Reading and Writing
4. Detaching from and deleting segments
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1. Creating the segment and connecting


• System V IPC is used in these examples
• A shared memory segment is ‘created’ and ‘connected to’ via
the shmget() call
int shmget(key_t key, size_t size, int shmflg);
• The key argument should be created using ftok().
• The size, is the size in bytes of the shared memory segment.
• The shmflg should be set to the permissions of the segment bitwise-
ORd with IPC_CREAT if you want to create the segment, but can be 0
otherwise.
• Upon successful completion, shmget() returns an identifier for the
shared memory segment.
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1. Creating the segment and connecting


Cont.
• Here's an example call that creates a 1K
segment with 644 permissions (rw-r--r--)

key_t key;
int shmid;

key = ftok("/home/beej/somefile3", 'R');


shmid = shmget(key, 1024, 0644 | IPC_CREAT);
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2. Getting a pointer to the segment


• The shared memory segment must be attached using
shmat() before its used.

void *shmat(int shmid, void *shmaddr, int shmflg);

• shmid is the shared memory ID from the shmget() call.


• shmaddr, which you can use to tell shmat() which specific address
to use. When set it to 0, the OS will decide the address.
• shmflg can be set to SHM_RDONLY if you only want to read from
it, 0 otherwise.
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2. Getting a pointer to the segment Cont.

• Here's a more complete example of how to get a


pointer to a shared memory segment:

key_t key;
int shmid;
char *data;

key = ftok("/home/beej/somefile3", 'R');


shmid = shmget(key, 1024, 0644 | IPC_CREAT);
data = shmat(shmid, (void *)0, 0);
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3. Reading and Writing


• The data pointer from the above example is
a char pointer. Thus it reads chars from it.
• lets say the 1K shared memory segment contains a null-
terminated string.
• It can be printed like this:
printf("shared contents: %s\n", data);
• And we could store something in it as easily as this:
printf("Enter a string: ");
gets(data);
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4. Detaching from and deleting segments


• When you're done with the shared memory segment, your
program should detach itself from it using the shmdt() call:

int shmdt(void *shmaddr);

– The only argument, shmaddr, is the address you got from shmat().
– The function returns -1 on error, 0 on success.
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4. Detaching from and deleting segments


Cont.
• Remember! When you detach from the segment, it isn't
destroyed. Nor is it removed when everyone detaches from it.

• You have to specifically destroy it using a call to shmctl()

shmctl(shmid, IPC_RMID, NULL);

• The above call deletes the shared memory segment, assuming


no one else is attached to it.
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Code Example
Or else,
• As always, you can destroy the shared memory segment from
the command line using the ipcrm Unix command.
ipcrm [–m shmid]

• Also, be sure that you don't leave any unused shared memory
segments sitting around wasting system resources.

• All the System V IPC objects you own can be viewed using
the ipcs command.
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Shared Memory, Pros and Cons


• Pros
– Fast bidirectional communication among any
number of processes
– Saves Resources

• Cons
– Needs concurrency control (leads to data
inconsistencies like ‘Lost update’)
– Lack of data protection from Operating System (OS)
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