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Point Swizzerling-An Approach by Example

The document discusses pointer swizzling techniques, which involve converting object identifiers to memory pointers to optimize access to objects that have been retrieved from secondary storage into main memory. It covers different approaches for object referencing like edge marking and node marking, as well as issues like copy versus in-place swizzling, eager versus lazy swizzling, and direct versus indirect swizzling.

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88 views13 pages

Point Swizzerling-An Approach by Example

The document discusses pointer swizzling techniques, which involve converting object identifiers to memory pointers to optimize access to objects that have been retrieved from secondary storage into main memory. It covers different approaches for object referencing like edge marking and node marking, as well as issues like copy versus in-place swizzling, eager versus lazy swizzling, and direct versus indirect swizzling.

Uploaded by

Rajbir
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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POINTER SWIZZLING

TECHNIQUES
1

© Pearson Education Limited 1995, 2005


POINTER SWIZZLING TECHNIQUES

The action of converting object identifiers (OIDs)


to main memory pointers.
• Aim is to optimize access to objects.
• Should be able to locate any referenced objects
on secondary storage using their OIDs.
• Once objects have been read into cache, want to
record that objects are now in memory to prevent
them from being retrieved again.

© Pearson Education Limited 1995, 2005 2


POINTER SWIZZLING TECHNIQUES

• Could hold lookup table that maps OIDs to


memory pointers (e.g. using hashing).
• Pointer swizzling attempts to provide a more
efficient strategy by storing memory pointers in the
place of referenced OIDs, and vice versa when
the object is written back to disk.

© Pearson Education Limited 1995, 2005 3


4
NO SWIZZLING

• Easiest implementation is not to do any swizzling.


• Objects faulted into memory, and handle passed to
application containing object’s OID.
• OID is used every time the object is accessed.
• System must maintain some type of lookup table -
Resident Object Table (ROT) - so that object’s
virtual memory pointer can be located and then
used to access object.
• Inefficient if same objects are accessed
repeatedly.
• Acceptable if objects only accessed once.

© Pearson Education Limited 1995, 2005 5


RESIDENT OBJECT TABLE (ROT)

© Pearson Education Limited 1995, 2005 6


OBJECT REFERENCING

• Need to distinguish between resident and non-


resident objects.
• Most techniques variations of edge marking or
node marking.
• Edge marking marks every object pointer with a
tag bit:
• if bit set, reference is to memory pointer;
• else, still pointing to OID and needs to be
swizzled when object it refers to is faulted into.

© Pearson Education Limited 1995, 2005 7


OBJECT REFERENCING

• Node marking requires that all object references


are immediately converted to virtual memory
pointers when object is faulted into memory.
• First approach is software-based technique but
second can be implemented using software or
hardware-based techniques.

© Pearson Education Limited 1995, 2005 8


HARDWARE-BASED SCHEMES

• Use virtual memory access protection violations


to detect accesses of non-resident objects.
• Use standard virtual memory hardware to trigger
transfer of persistent data from disk to memory.
• Once page has been faulted in, objects are
accessed via normal virtual memory pointers and
no further object residency checking is required.
• Avoids overhead of residency checks incurred by
software approaches.

© Pearson Education Limited 1995, 2005 9


POINTER SWIZZLING - OTHER ISSUES

• Three other issues that affect swizzling techniques:


• Copy versus In-Place Swizzling.
• Eager versus Lazy Swizzling.
• Direct versus Indirect Swizzling.

© Pearson Education Limited 1995, 2005 10


COPY VERSUS IN-PLACE SWIZZLING

• When faulting objects in, data can either be


copied into application’s local object cache or
accessed in-place within object manager’s
database cache .
• Copy swizzling may be more efficient as, in the
worst case, only modified objects have to be
swizzled back to their OIDs.
• In-place may have to unswizzle entire page of
objects if one object on page is modified.

© Pearson Education Limited 1995, 2005 11


EAGER VERSUS LAZY SWIZZLING

• Moss defines eager swizzling as swizzling all OIDs


for persistent objects on all data pages used by
application, before any object can be accessed.
• More relaxed definition restricts swizzling to all
persistent OIDs within object the application wishes
to access.
• Lazy swizzling only swizzles pointers as they are
accessed or discovered.

© Pearson Education Limited 1995, 2005 12


DIRECT VERSUS INDIRECT SWIZZLING

• Only an issue when swizzled pointer can refer to


object that is no longer in virtual memory.
• With direct swizzling, virtual memory pointer of
referenced object is placed directly in swizzled
pointer.
• With indirect swizzling, virtual memory pointer is
placed in an intermediate object, which acts as a
placeholder for the actual object.
• Allows objects to be uncached without requiring swizzled
pointers to be unswizzled.

© Pearson Education Limited 1995, 2005 13

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