Re: non-gcc related question: Language that allows defining non-swappable regions of code

[Bernd Jendrissek <berndj at prism dot co dot za>]

On Mon, Sep 02, 2002 at 07:31:47AM +0200, Rene Rebe wrote:
> On: 01 Sep 2002 22:16:24 -0700,
>     Kristis Makris <devcore@freeuk.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > This is more of a theoretical question that does not directly relate to
> > gcc and it's development, and I hope it's not too intrusive. I was
> > wondering if there exists a language, or an extension to a language,
> > that allows specifying blocks of source code that should be loaded by
> > the underlying operating system to a memory area that cannot be swapped
> > out of memory.
> 
> [...]
> 
> You might to visit the man-page of:
> 
> mlock                (2)  - disable paging for some parts of memory
> mlockall             (2)  - disable paging for calling process
> munlock              (2)  - reenable paging for some parts of memory
> munlockall           (2)  - reenable paging for calling process
> 
> Such features have nothing to do in a programming language ...

gcc-help@gcc.gnu.org next time...

You can use __attribute__((section("unswapped"))) in conjunction with
this.  There's nothing special about the name "unswapped"; just make sure
your output file format supports arbitrary section names.

Consider using a linker script to place whole modules in unswapped regions.
That does not require language extensions either.

Look at linux kernel code - it uses section attributes extensively, as well
as a linker script so the linker knows what to do with these sections.

bernd

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