Re: [Caml-list] appending data to a mmap-ed file

["Richard W.M. Jones" <rich@annexia.org>]

On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 11:31:16AM +0000, Joel Reymont wrote:
> I'm constantly appending to a file of stock quotes (ints, longs,
> doubles, etc.). I have this file mapped into memory with mmap.
>
> What's the most efficient way to make newly appended data available
> as part of the memory mapping?

Unfortunately it's hard to reliably extend an mmap'd area.  The reason
is not that you can't do it, but that you might overrun another memory
mapping after it, where that other mapping could be something
important like your program or a shared library.  The other mapping
might not even be present at the time you initially map your file, but
might appear as the result of an innocuous operation such as printing
a string or allocating memory.

Now you can, with a bunch of work, avoid this: parse /proc/self/maps,
select a suitable base address for your mapping, move the mapping if
it gets too large for the selected area or if another library is
mapped in above it, etc. but this quickly gets very difficult.

I would suggest a simpler way to solve your problem is simply to open
the data file and append to it.  If you need to reference the values,
keep them in memory structures.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones
Red Hat