Methods and systems for control of memory
First Claim
1. A memory management system for conserving storage in a computing system, said memory management system comprising:
- storage means for storing data being used by application programs in said computing system, said storage means including a plurality of storage locations for storing data therein;
memory means for storing data being used by applications programs in said computing system, said memory means including a plurality of storage units for storing data therein;
a plurality of storage unit state indicators, each of said storage unit state indicators associated with one of said storage units for indicating that said corresponding storage unit is set to one of the states of fixed indicating that the data stored in the storage unit is fixed, pageable indicating that the data stored in the storage unit is not fixed and may be replaced with data stored in one of said stored locations, or don'"'"'t care indicating that the data stored in the storage unit may be fixed or pageable; and
storage manager means, operationally connected to said storage means, said storage units and responsive to said storage unit state indicators, for controlling the movement of data between said one of said plurality of storage units and said storage means in response to the one of said storage unit state indicators corresponding to the one of said storage units.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Effective memory management maximizes the use of main memory in a computing system by avoiding the issuance of operating system primitives which result in overhead and increased processing time. This allows an applications program to change the state of a storage unit such as a buffer or page without requiring the issuance of an operating system primitive to change the physical state of the storage unit. A storage manager is provided for controlling the movement of data between storage units in secondary storage and storage units in main memory. A storage unit state indicator or flag is associated with each storage unit in main memory. In addition, a system state indicator for indicating the physical state of a storage unit is also associated with each storage unit. The system state indicator may be set to one of the states of fixed or pageable while the storage unit state indicator may be set to one of the states of fixed, pageable or don'"'"'t care. The storage manager monitors the usage of memory to determine whether a fixed storage constraint may occur. Upon a determination that a fixed storage constraint may occur, the storage manager notifies the applications programs of the fixed storage constraint. In response, applications programs can temporarily change the state of a storage unit containing data which temporarily may not be needed by the applications program from fixed to don'"'"'t care by changing the storage unit state indicator from fixed to don'"'"'t care. Thus, the storage unit is available to the storage manager if needed without the need to have the storage manager issue an operating system primitive to change the system state indicator for the storage unit from fixed to pageable.
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Citations
30 Claims
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1. A memory management system for conserving storage in a computing system, said memory management system comprising:
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storage means for storing data being used by application programs in said computing system, said storage means including a plurality of storage locations for storing data therein; memory means for storing data being used by applications programs in said computing system, said memory means including a plurality of storage units for storing data therein; a plurality of storage unit state indicators, each of said storage unit state indicators associated with one of said storage units for indicating that said corresponding storage unit is set to one of the states of fixed indicating that the data stored in the storage unit is fixed, pageable indicating that the data stored in the storage unit is not fixed and may be replaced with data stored in one of said stored locations, or don'"'"'t care indicating that the data stored in the storage unit may be fixed or pageable; and storage manager means, operationally connected to said storage means, said storage units and responsive to said storage unit state indicators, for controlling the movement of data between said one of said plurality of storage units and said storage means in response to the one of said storage unit state indicators corresponding to the one of said storage units. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A memory management method for conserving storage in a computing system having a central processing unit, secondary storage having a plurality of storage locations for storing data therein, main memory having a plurality of storage units for storing data therein, and an operating system, said method comprising the steps of:
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storing data being used by application programs in said computing system in said secondary storage; storing data being used by applications programs in said computing system in said main memory; associating one storage unit state indicator with one of said storage units and indicating that said corresponding storage unit is set to one of the states of fixed indicating that the data stored in the storage unit is fixed, pageable indicating that the data stored in the storage unit is not fixed and may be replaced with data stored in one of said stored locations, or don'"'"'t care indicating that the data stored in the storage unit may be fixed or pageable; and controlling the movement of data between said one of said plurality of storage units in main memory and said secondary storage in response to the one of said storage unit state indicators corresponding to the one of said storage units. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A computer program product for conserving storage in a computing system having a central processing unit, secondary storage having a plurality of storage locations for storing data therein, main memory having a plurality of storage units for storing data therein, and an operating system, said computer program product comprising:
a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code means embodied in said medium, said computer readable program code means comprising; computer instruction means for storing data being used by application programs in said computing system in said secondary storage; computer instruction means for storing data being used by applications programs in said computing system in said main memory; computer instruction means for associating one storage unit state indicator with one of said storage units and indicating that said corresponding storage unit is set to one of the states of fixed indicating that the data stored in the storage unit is fixed, pageable indicating that the data stored in the storage unit is not fixed and may be replaced with data stored in one of said stored locations, or don'"'"'t care indicating that the data stored in the storage unit may be fixed or pageable; and computer instruction means for controlling the movement of data between said one of said plurality of storage units in main memory and said secondary storage in response to the one of said storage unit state indicators corresponding to the one of said storage units. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
Specification