Re: wrong madvise(MADV_DONTNEED) semantic

[Jörn Engel]

On Tue, 28 June 2005 16:05:11 -0400, Robert Love wrote:
> 
> I like the idea (I think someone suggested this early on) of renaming
> the current MADV_DONTNEED to MADV_FREE and then adding a correct
> MADV_DONTNEED.

Imo, that's still a crime against common sense.  Madvice should give
the kernel some advice about which data to keep or not to keep in
memory, hence the name.  It should *not* tell the kernel to corrupt
data, which currently appears to be the case.

If the application knows 100% that it is the _only_ possible user of
this data and will never again use it, dropping dirty pages might be a
sane option.  Effectively that translates to anonymous memory only.
In all other cases, dirty pages should be written back.

> And, as I said, the man page needs clarification.

Definitely.

Jörn

-- 
Eighty percent of success is showing up.
-- Woody Allen
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