1) What is the first step in problem-solving? A) Writing code B) Debugging C) Understanding the problem D) Optimizing the solution Answer: C 2) Which of these is not a step in the problem-solving process? A) Algorithm development B) Problem analysis C) Random guessing D) Testing and debugging Answer: C 3) What is an algorithm? A) A high-level programming language B) A step-by-step procedure to solve a problem C) A flowchart D) A data structure Answer: B 4) Which of these is the simplest data structure for representing a sequence of elements? A) Dictionary B) List C) Set D) Tuple Answer: B 5) What does a flowchart represent? A) Errors in a program B) A graphical representation of an algorithm C) The final solution to a problem D) A set of Python modules Answer: B 6) What is pseudocode? A) Code written in Python B) Fake code written for fun C) An informal high-level description of an algorithm D) A tool for testing code Answer: C 7) Which of the following tools is NOT commonly used in pr...
Memory-mapped files
Rather than retriving data files directly via the file system with every file access, data files can be paged into memory the same as process files, resulting in much faster retrieves ( except of course when page-faults occur. ) This is called as memory-mapping a file.
Basic Mechanism
* Basically a file is mapped to an address range within a process's virtual address space, and then paged in as required using the ordinary demand paging system.
* Note that file matches are made to the memory page frames, and are not immediately written out to disk. ( This is the purpose of the "flush( )" system call, which may also be needed for stdout in some cases. See the time killer program for an example of this)
* This is also why it is important to "close()" a file when one is done writing to it - So that the data can be safely flushed out to disk and so that the memory frames can be release for other purposes.
* Some systems issue special system calls to memory map files and use direct disk retrieve otherwise. Other systems map the file to process address space if the special system calls are used and map the file to kernel address space otherwise, but do memory mapping in either case.
* File sharing is made pratical by mapping the same file to the address space of more than one process, as shown in below Figure. Copy-on-write is supported, and mutual exclusion techniques may be needed to avoid synchronization problems.
* Shared memory can be executed via shared memory-mapped files ( Windows ), or it can be implemented through a separate process ( Linux, UNIX. )
Shared Memory in the Win32 API
* Windows executes shared memory using shared memory-mapped files, involving three basic steps:
1. Create a file, generating a HANDLE to the new file.
2. Name the file as a shared object, producing a HANDLE to the shared object.
3. Map the shared object to virtual memory address space, returning its base address as a void pointer ( LPVOID ).
This is illustrated in below Figure
Memory-Mapped I/O
* All retrieve to devices is done by writing into ( or reading from ) the device's registers. Normally this is completed via special I/O instructions.
* For definite devices it makes sense to simply map the device's registers to addresses in the process's virtual address space, making device I/O as fast and simple as any other memory access. Video controller cards are a typical example of this.
* Serial and parallel devices can also utilize memory mapped I/O, mapping the device registers to particular memory addresses known as I/O Ports, e.g. 0xF8. Moving a series of bytes must be done one at a time, moving only as fast as the I/O device is prepared to process the data, through one of two mechanisms:
• Programmed I/O ( PIO ), also called as polling. The CPU frequently verifies the control bit on the device, to see if it is ready to handle another byte of data.
• Interrupt Driven. The device produces an interrupt when it either has another byte of data to deliver or is ready to receive another byte.