Messages in this thread | | | From | "Jones D (ISaCS)" <> | Subject | RE: Overcommitable memory?? | Date | Fri, 24 Mar 2000 14:08:19 -0000 |
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> Some system call "get_free_pages", maybe... If it's getting low, > don't do <something> you were about to do?? > > This requires cooperative tasks, but many programs could be > "taught" to cooperate, just put such a call into malloc().
AmigaOS (and probably some others) has/had a function where you could install a low-memory handler for each process. When the system ran low on ram, it would iterate through the process table telling a process to free something. As an example, a text-editor could then save undo buffers etc to tmp workspace until needed, or a graphical program could purge off-screen buffers etc...
This does of course mean that a lot of userspace apps need rewriting to support the new feature, and not all apps are written in a way that they can discard unused parts (even temporarily).
regards,
Dave.
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