Document revision date: 30 March 2001

The flags argument to the SYS$CRMPSC system service defines the following section characteristics:

• Whether it is a private section or a global section. The default is to create a private section.
• How the pages of the section are to be treated when they are copied into physical memory or when a process refers to them. The pages in a section can be either or both of the following:
  • Read/write or read-only
  • Created as demand-zero pages or as copy-on-reference pages, depending on how the processes are going to use the section and whether the file contains any data (see Section 12.4.7.12)
• Whether the section is to be mapped to a disk file or to specific physical page frames (see Section 12.4.7.18).

Table 12-3 shows the flag bits that must be set for specific characteristics on Alpha systems.

Table 12-3 Flag Bits to Set for Specific Section Characteristics on Alpha Systems

	Section to Be Created
Correct Flag Combinations	Private	Global	PFN Private	PFN Global
SEC$M_GBL	0	1	0	1
SEC$M_CRF	Optional	Optional	0	0
SEC$M_DZRO	Optional	Optional	0	0
SEC$M_WRT	Optional	Optional	Optional	Optional
SEC$M_PERM	Not used	Optional	Not used	1
SEC$M_SYSGBL	Not used	Optional	Not used	Optional
SEC$M_PFNMAP	0	0	1	1
SEC$M_EXPREG	Optional	Optional	Optional	Optional
SEC$M_PAGFIL	0	Optional	0	0

When you specify section characteristics, the following restrictions apply:

• Global sections cannot be both demand-zero and copy-on-reference.
• Demand-zero sections must be writable.

If the section is a global section, you must assign a character string name (gsdnam argument) to it so that other processes can identify it when they map it. The format of this character string name is explained in Section 12.4.7.6.

The flags argument specifies the following types of global section:

• Group temporary (the default)
• Group permanent
• System temporary
• System permanent

Group global sections can be shared only by processes executing with the same group number. The name of a group global section is implicitly qualified by the group number of the process that created it. When other processes map it, their group numbers must match.

A temporary global section is automatically deleted when no processes are mapped to it, but a permanent global section remains in existence even when no processes are mapped to it. A permanent global section must be explicitly marked for deletion with the Delete Global Section (SYS$DGBLSC) system service.

You need the user privileges PRMGBL and SYSGBL to create permanent group global sections or system global sections (temporary or permanent), respectively.

A system global section is available to all processes in the system.

Optionally, a process creating a global section can specify a protection mask (prot argument) to restrict all access or a type of access (read, write, execute, delete) to other processes.

12.4.7.6 Global Section Name

The gsdnam argument specifies a descriptor that points to a character string.

Translation of the gsdnam argument proceeds in the following manner:

1. The current name string is prefixed with GBL$ and the result is subject to logical name translation.
2. If the result is a logical name, step 1 is repeated until translation does not succeed or until the number of translations performed exceeds the number specified by the system parameter LNM$C_MAXDEPTH.
3. The GBL$ prefix is stripped from the current name string that could not be translated. This current string is the global section name.

For example, assume that you have made the following logical name assignment:

$ DEFINE GBL$GSDATA GSDATA_001

Your program contains the following statements:

#include <descrip.h> . . . $DESCRIPTOR(gsdnam,"GSDATA"); . . . status = sys$crmpsc(&gsdnam, ...);

The following logical name translation takes place:

1. GBL$ is prefixed to GSDATA.
2. GBL$GSDATA is translated to GSDATA_001. (Further translation is not successful. When logical name translation fails, the string is passed to the service.)

There are three exceptions to the logical name translation method discussed in this section:

• If the name string starts with an underscore (_), the operating system strips the underscore and considers the resultant string to be the actual name (that is, further translation is not performed).
• If the name string is the result of a logical name translation, then the name string is checked to see if it has the terminal attribute. If the name string is marked with the terminal attribute, the operating system considers the resultant string to be the actual name (that is, further translation is not performed).
• If the global section has a name in the format name_nnn, the operating system first strips the underscore and the digits (nnn), then translates the resultant name according to the sequence discussed in this section, and finally reappends the underscore and digits. The system uses this method in conjunction with known images and shared files installed by the system manager.

When you call the SYS$CRMPSC system service to create or map a section, or both, you must provide the service with a range of virtual addresses (inadr argument) into which the section is to be mapped.

On Alpha systems, the inadr argument specifies the size and location of the section by its start and end addresses. SYS$CRMPSC interprets the inadr argument in the following ways:

• If both addresses specified in the inadr argument are the same and the SEC$M_EXPREG bit is set in the flags argument, SYS$CRMPSC allocates the memory in whichever program region the addresses fall but does not use the specified location.
• If both addresses are different, SYS$CRMPSC maps the section into memory using the boundaries specified.

On Alpha systems, if you know specifically which pages the section should be mapped into, you provide these addresses in a 2-longword array. For example, to map a private section of 10 pages into virtual pages 10 through 19 of the program region, specify the input address array as follows:

unsigned int maprange[1]; /* Assume page size = 8 KB */ maprange[0] = 0x14000; /* Address (hex) of page 10 */ maprange[1] = 0x27FFF; /* Address (hex) of page 19 */

On Alpha systems, the inadr argument range must have a lower address on an even page boundary and a higher address exactly one less than a page boundary. You do this to avoid programming errors that might arise because of incorrect programming assumptions about page sizes. For example, the range can be expressed as the following on an 8 KB page system:

0 ----> 1FFF
2000 ----> 7FFF
or
inadr[0] = first byte in range
inadr[1] = last byte in range

If the range is not expressed in terms of page-inclusive boundaries, then an SS$_INVARG condition value is returned.

You do not need to know the explicit addresses to provide an input address range. If you want the section mapped into the first available virtual address range in the program region (P0) or control region (P1), you can specify the SEC$M_EXPREG flag bit in the flags argument. In this case, the addresses specified by the inadr argument control whether the service finds the first available space in the P0 or P1. The value specified or defaulted for the pagcnt argument determines the amount of space mapped.

On Alpha systems, the relpag argument specifies the location in the section file at which you want mapping to begin.

On Alpha systems, the SYS$CRMPSC and SYS$MGBLSC system services map a minimum of one CPU-specific page. If the section file does not fill a single page, the remainder of the page is filled with zeros after faulting the page into memory. The extra space on the page should not be used by your application because only the data that fits into the section file will be written back to the disk.

The following example shows part of a program used to map a section at the current end of the program region:

unsigned int status, inadr[1], retadr[1], flags; /* This range used merely to indicate P0 space since SEC$M_EXPREG is specified */ inadr[0]= 0x200; /* Any program (P0) region address */ inadr[1]= 0x200; /* Any P0 address (can be same) */ . . . /* Address range returned in retadr */ flags = SEC$M_EXPREG; status = sys$crmpsc(&inadr, &retadr, flags, ...);

The addresses specified do not have to be currently in the virtual address space of the process. The SYS$CRMPSC system service creates the required virtual address space during the mapping of the section. If you specify the retadr argument, the service returns the range of addresses actually mapped.

On Alpha systems, the starting retadr address should match inadr, plus relpag if specified. The ending (higher) address will be limited by the lower of:

• The value of the pagcnt argument
• The actual remaining block count in the file starting with specified starting vbn, or relpag
• The bound dictated by the inadr argument

After a section is mapped successfully, the image can refer to the pages using one of the following:

• A base register or pointer and predefined symbolic offset names
• Labels defining offsets of an absolute program section or structure

The following example shows part of a program used to create and map a process section on Alpha systems:

SECFAB: $FAB FNM=<SECTION.TST>, - FOP=UFO, - FAC=PUT, - SHR=<GET,PUT,UPI> ; MAPRANGE: .LONG ^X14000 ; First 8 KB page .LONG ^X27FFF ; Last page RETRANGE: .BLKL 1 ; First page mapped ENDRANGE: .BLKL 1 ; Last page mapped . . . $OPEN FAB=SECFAB ; Open section file BLBS R0,10$ BSBW ERROR 10$: $CRMPSC_S - INADR=MAPRANGE,- ; Input address array RETADR=RETRANGE,- ; Output array PAGCNT=#4,- ; Map four pagelets FLAGS=#SEC$M_WRT,- ; Read/write section CHAN=SECFAB+FAB$L_STV ; Channel number BLBS R0,20$ BSBW ERROR 20$: MOVL RETRANGE,R6 ; Point to start of section

Notes on Example

1. The OPEN macro opens the section file defined in the file access block SECFAB. (The FOP parameter to the $FAB macro must specify the UFO option.)
2. The SYS$CRMPSC system service uses the addresses specified at MAPRANGE to specify an input range of addresses into which the section will be mapped. The pagcnt argument requests that only 4 pagelets of the file be mapped.
3. The flags argument requests that the pages in the section have read/write access. The symbolic flag definitions for this argument are defined in the $SECDEF macro. Note that the file access field (FAC parameter) in the FAB also indicates that the file is to be opened for writing.
4. When SYS$CRMPSC completes, the addresses of the 4 pagelets that were mapped are returned in the output address array at RETRANGE. The address of the beginning of the section is placed in register 6, which serves as a pointer to the section.

A process that creates a global section can map that global section. Then other processes can map it by calling the Map Global Section (SYS$MGBLSC) system service.

When a process maps a global section, it must specify the global section name assigned to the section when it was created, whether it is a group or system global section, and whether it desires read-only or read/write access. The process may also specify the following:

• A version identification (ident argument), indicating the version number of the global section (when multiple versions exist) and whether more recent versions are acceptable to the process.
• A relative pagelet number (relpag argument), specifying the pagelet number, relative to the beginning of the section, to begin mapping the section. In this way, processes can use only portions of a section. Additionally, a process can map a piece of a section into a particular address range and subsequently map a different piece of the section into the same virtual address range.

On Alpha systems, you should specify the retadr argument to determine the exact boundaries of the memory that was mapped by the call. If your application specifies the relpag argument, you must specify the retadr argument. In this case, it is not an optional argument.

Cooperating processes can both issue a SYS$CRMPSC system service to create and map the same global section. The first process to call the service actually creates the global section; subsequent attempts to create and map the section result only in mapping the section for the caller. The successful return status code SS$_CREATED indicates that the section did not already exist when the SYS$CRMPSC system service was called. If the section did exist, the status code SS$_NORMAL is returned.

The example in Section 12.4.7.12 shows one process (ORION) creating a global section and a second process (CYGNUS) mapping the section.

12.4.7.9 Global Page-File Sections

Global page-file sections are used to store temporary data in a global section. A global page-file section is a section of virtual memory that is not mapped to a file. The section can be deleted when processes have finished with it. (Contrast this with demand-zero section file pages where no initialization is necessary, but the pages are saved in a file.) The system parameter GBLPAGFIL controls the total number of global page-file pages in the system.

To create a global page-file section, you must set the flag bits SEC$M_GBL and SEC$M_PAGFIL in the flags argument to the Create and Map Section (SYS$CRMPSC) system service. The channel (chan argument) must be 0.

You cannot specify the flag bit SEC$M_CRF with the flag bit SEC$M_PAGFIL.

12.4.7.10 Mapping into a Defined Address Range (Alpha Only)

On Alpha systems, SYS$CRMPSC and SYS$MGBLSC interpret some of the arguments differently than on VAX systems if you are mapping a section into a defined area of virtual address space. The differences are as follows:

• The addresses specified as values in the inadr argument must be aligned on CPU-specific page boundaries. On VAX systems, SYS$CRMPSC and the SYS$MGBLSC round these addresses to page boundaries for you. On Alpha systems, SYS$CRMPSC does not round the addresses you specify to page boundaries, because rounding to CPU-specific page boundaries on Alpha system affects a much larger portion of memory than it does on VAX systems, where page sizes are much smaller. Therefore, on Alpha systems, you must explicitly state where you want the virtual memory space mapped. If the addresses you specify are not aligned on CPU-specific page boundaries, SYS$CRMPSC returns an invalid arguments error (SS$_INVARG).
  In particular, the lower inadr address must be on a CPU-specific page boundary, and the higher inadr address must be one less than a CPU-specific page; that is, it indicates the highest-addressed byte of the inadr range.
• The addresses returned in the retadr argument reflect only the usable portion of the actual memory mapped by the call, not the entire amount mapped. The usable amount is either the value specified in the pagcnt argument (measured in pagelets) or the size of the section file, whichever is smaller. The actual amount mapped depends on how many CPU-specific pages are required to map the section file. If the section file does not fill a CPU-specific page, the remainder of the page is filled with zeros. The excess space on this page should not be used by your application. The end address specified in the retadr argument specifies the upper limit available to your application. Also note that, when the relpag argument is specified, the retadr argument must be included. It is not optional on Alpha systems.

On Alpha systems, you can map a portion of a section file by specifying the address at which to start the mapping as an offset from the beginning of the section file. You specify this offset by supplying a value to the relpag argument of SYS$CRMPSC. The value of the relpag argument specifies the pagelet number relative to the beginning of the file at which the mapping should begin.

To preserve compatibility, SYS$CRMPSC interprets the value of the relpag argument in 512-byte units on both VAX systems and Alpha systems. However, because the CPU-specific page size on the Alpha system is larger than 512 bytes, the address specified by the offset in the relpag argument probably does not fall on a CPU-specific page boundary on an Alpha system. SYS$CRMPSC can map virtual memory in CPU-specific page increments only. Therefore, on Alpha systems, the mapping of the section file will start at the beginning of the CPU-specific page that contains the offset address, not at the address specified by the offset.

If you map from an offset into a section file, you must still provide an inadr argument that abides by the requirements presented in Section 12.4.7.10 when mapping into a defined address range.

12.4.7.12 Section Paging

The first time an image executing in a process refers to a page that was created during the mapping of a disk file section, the page is copied into physical memory. The address of the page in the virtual address space of a process is mapped to the physical page. During the execution of the image, normal paging can occur; however, pages in sections are not written into the page file when they are paged out, as is the normal case. Rather, if they have been modified, they are written back into the section file on disk. The next time a page fault occurs for the page, the page is brought back from the section file.

If the pages in a section were defined as demand-zero pages or copy-on-reference pages when the section was created, the pages are treated differently, as follows:

• If the call to SYS$CRMPSC requested that pages in the section be treated as demand-zero pages, these pages are initialized to zeros when they are created in physical memory. If the file is either a new file being created as a section or a file being completely rewritten, demand-zero pages provide a convenient way of initializing the pages. The pages are paged back into the section file.
• When the section is deleted, all unreferenced pages are written back to the file as zeros. This causes the file to be initialized, no matter how few pages were modified.
  See Section 12.4.7.14 for details about deleting sections.
• If the call to SYS$CRMPSC requested that pages in the section be copy-on-reference pages, each process that maps to the section receives its own copy of the section, on a page-by-page basis from the file, as it refers to them. These pages are never written back into the section file but are paged to the paging file as needed.

In the case of global sections, more than one process can be mapped to the same physical pages. If these pages need to be paged out or written back to the disk file defined as the section, these operations are done only when the pages are not in the working set of any process.

In the following example for Alpha systems, process ORION creates a global section and process CYGNUS maps to that section:

/* Process ORION */ #include <rms.h> #include <rmsdef.h> #include <literal>(<string.h>) #include <secdef.h> #include <descrip.h> struct FAB gblfab; main() { unsigned short chan; unsigned int status, flags, efn=65; char *fn = "SECTION.TST"; $DESCRIPTOR(name, "FLAG_CLUSTER"); /* Common event flag cluster name */ $DESCRIPTOR(gsdnam, "GLOBAL_SECTION"); /* Global section name */ (1)status = SYS$ASCEFC(efn, &name, 0); if ((status & 1) != 1) LIB$SIGNAL( status ); /* Initialize FAB fields */ gblfab = cc$rms_fab; gblfab.fab$l_alq = 4; gblfab.fab$b_fac = FAB$M_PUT; gblfab.fab$l_fnm = fn; gblfab.fab$l_fop = FAB$M_CIF || FAB$M_CBT; . . . /* Create a file if none exists */ (2)status = SYS$CREATE( &gblfab, 0, 0 ); if ((status & 1) != 1) LIB$SIGNAL( status ); flags = SEC$M_GBL | SEC$M_WRT; status = SYS$CRMPSC(0, 0, 0, flags, &gsdnam, ...); if ((status & 1) != 1) LIB$SIGNAL( status ); status = SYS$SETEF(efn); if ((status & 1) != 1) LIB$SIGNAL( status ); . . . } /* Process CYGNUS */ unsigned int status, efn=65; $DESCRIPTOR(cluster,"FLAG_CLUSTER"); $DESCRIPTOR(section,"GLOBAL_SECTION"); . . . (3)status = SYS$ASCEFC(efn, &cluster, 0); if ((status & 1) != 1) LIB$SIGNAL( status ); status = SYS$WAITFR(efn); if ((status & 1) != 1) LIB$SIGNAL( status ); status = SYS$MGBLSC(&inadr, &retadr, 0, flags, &section, 0, 0); if ((status & 1) != 1) LIB$SIGNAL( status ); }

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