Areas¶

An area is a chunk of virtual memory. As such, it has all the expected properties of virtual memory: It has a starting address, a size, addresses it comprises are contiguous, and it maps to (possibly non-contiguous) physical memory. The features that an area provides that you don’t get with “standard” memory are these:

Areas can be shared.: Different areas can refer to the same physical memory. Put another way, different virtual memory addresses can map to the same physical locations. Furthermore, the different areas needn’t belong to the same application. By creating and “cloning” areas, applications can easily share the same data.
Areas can be locked into RAM.: You can specify that the area’s physical memory be locked into RAM when it’s created, locked on a page-by-page basis as pages are swapped in, or that it be swapped in and out as needed.
Areas can be read- and write-protected.: Areas are page-aligned. Areas always start on a page boundary, and are allocated in integer multiples of the size of a page. (A page is 4096 bytes, as represented by the B_PAGE_SIZE constant.)
You can specify the starting address of the area’s virtual memory.: The specification can require that the area start precisely at a certain address, anywhere above a certain address, or anywhere at all.

Because areas are large—one page, minimum—you don’t create them arbitrarily. The two most compelling reasons to create an area are the two first points listed above: To share data among different applications, and to lock memory into RAM.

In all particulars (but one) you treat the memory that an area gives you exactly as you would treat any allocated memory: You can read and write it through pointer manipulation, or through standard functions such as memcpy() and strcpy(). The one difference is between areas and malloc’d memory is…

You never free() the memory that an area allocates for you. If you want to get rid of an area, use the delete_area() function, instead.

Area IDs and Area Names¶

Each area that you create is tagged with an area_id number:

An area_id number is a positive integer that’s global and unique within the scope of the computer. They’re not unique across the network, nor are they persistent across boots.
The area_id numbers are generated and assigned automatically by the create_area() and clone_area() functions. The other area functions operate on these area_id numbers (they’re required as arguments).
Although they are global, area_id numbers have little meaning outside of the address space (application) in which they were created.
Once assigned, the area_id number doesn’t change; the number is invalidated when delete_area() is called or when the application (team) that created it dies.
Don’t worry about recycled area_id numbers. When an area is deleted, its area_id goes with it. (area_id values are recycled, but the turnover is at 2^31.)

Areas can also be (loosely) identified by name:

When you create an area (through create_area() or clone_area()), you get to name it.
Area names are not unique—any number of areas can be assigned the same name.
To look up an area by name, use the find_area() function.

Locking An Area¶

When you’re working with moderately large amounts of data, it’s often the case that you would prefer that the data remain in RAM, even if the rest of your application needs to be swapped out. An argument to create_area() lets you declare, through the use of one of the following constants, the locking scheme that you wish to apply to your area:

Constant	Description
`B_FULL_LOCK`	The area’s memory is locked into RAM when the area is created, and won’t be swapped out.
`B_CONTIGUOUS`	Not only is the area’s memory locked into RAM, it’s also guaranteed to be contiguous. This is particulary—and perhaps exclusively—useful to designers of certain types of device drivers.
`B_LAZY_LOCK`	Allows individual pages of memory to be brought into RAM through the natural order of things and then locks them.
`B_NO_LOCK`	Pages are never locked, they’re swapped in and out as needed.
`B_LOMEM`	This is a special constant that’s used for areas that need to be locked, contiguous, and that fit within the first 16MB of physical memory. The folks that need this constant know who they are.

Keep in mind that locking an area essentially reduces the amount of RAM that can be used by other applications, and so increases the likelihood of swapping. So you shouldn’t lock simply because you’re greedy. But if the area that you’re locking is going to be shared among some number of other applications, or if you’re writing a real-time application that processes large chunks of data, then locking can be a justifiable excess.

The locking scheme is set by the create_area() function and is thereafter immutable. You can’t re-declare the lock when you clone an area.

Area Info¶

Ultimately, you use an area for the virtual memory that it represents: You create an area because you want some memory to which you can write and from which you can read data. These acts are performed in the usual manner, through references to specific addresses. Setting a pointer to a location within the area, and checking that you haven’t exceeded the area’s memory bounds as you increment the pointer (while reading or writing) are your own responsibility. To do this properly, you need to know the area’s starting address and its extent:

An area’s starting address is maintained as the address field in its area_info structure; you retrieve the area_info for a particular area through the get_area_info() function.
The size of the area (in bytes) is given as the size field of its area_info structure.

An important point, with regard to area_info, is that the address field is only valid for the application that created or cloned the area (in other words, the application that created the area_id that was passed to get_area_info()). Although the memory that underlies an area is global, the address that you get from an area_info structure refers to a specific address space.

If there’s any question about whether a particular area_id is “local” or “foreign,” you can compare the area_info.team field to your thread’s team.

Deleting an Area¶

When your application quits, the areas (the area_id numbers) that it created through create_area() or clone_area() are automatically rendered invalid. The memory underlying these areas, however, isn’t necessarily freed. An area’s memory is freed only when (and as soon as) there are no more areas that refer to it.

You can force the invalidation of an area_id by passing it to the delete_area() function. Again, the underlying memory is only freed if yours is the last area to refer to the memory.

Deleting an area, whether explicitly through delete_area(), or because your application quit, never affects the status of other areas that were cloned from it.

Area Examples¶

Example 1: Creating and Writing into an Area¶

As a simple example of area creation and usage, here we create a ten page area and fill half of it (with nonsense) by bumping a pointer:

area_id my_area;
char *area_addr, *ptr;

/* Create an area. */
my_area = create_area("my area", /* name you give to the area */
      (void *)&area_addr, /* returns the starting addr */
      B_ANY_ADDRESS, /* area can start anywhere */
      B_PAGE_SIZE*10, /* size in bytes */
      B_NO_LOCK, /* Lock in RAM? No. */
      B_READ_AREA | B_WRITE_AREA); /* permissions */

/* check for errors */
if (my_area < 0) {
      printf("Something bad happenedn");
      return;
}

/* Set ptr to the beginning of the area. */
ptr = area_addr;

/* Fill half the area (with random-ish data). */
for (int i; i < B_PAGE_SIZE*5; i++)
   *ptr++ = system_time()%256;

You can also memcpy() and strcpy() into the area:

/* Copy the first half of the area into the second half. */
memcpy(ptr, area_addr, B_PAGE_SIZE*5);

/* Overwrite the beginning of the area. */
strcpy(area_addr, "Hey, look where I am.");

When we’re all done, we delete the area:

delete_area(my_area);

Example 2: Reading a File into an Area¶

Here’s a function that finds a file, opens it (implicit in the BFile constructor), and copies its contents into RAM:

#include <File.h>

area_id file_area;

status_t file_reader(const char *pathname)
{
   status_t err;
   char *area_addr;

   BFile file(pathname, B_READ_ONLY);
   if ((err=file.InitCheck()) != B_OK) {
      printf("%s: Can't find or open.n", pathname);
      return err;
   }

   err = file.GetSize(&file_size);
   if (err != B_OK || file_size == 0) {
      printf("%s: Disappeared? Empty?n", pathname);
      return err;
   }

   /* Round the size up to the nearest page. */
   file_size = (((file_size-1) % B_PAGE_SIZE)+1)*B_PAGE_SIZE;

   /* Make sure the size won't overflow a size_t spec. */
   if (file_size >= ((1<<32)-1) ) {
      printf("%s: What'd you do? Read Montana?n");
      return B_NO_MEMORY;
   }

   file_area = create_area("File area", (void *)&area_addr,
      B_ANY_ADDRESS, file_size, B_FULL_LOCK,
      B_READ_AREA | B_WRITE_AREA);

   /* Check create_area() errors, as in the last example. */
   ...

   /* Read the file; delete the area if there's an error. */
   if ((err=file.Read(area_addr, file_size)) < B_OK) {
      printf("%s: File read error.n");
      delete_area(file_area);
      return err;
   }

   /* The file is automatically closed when the stack-based
   * BFile is destroyed.
   */
   return B_OK;
}

Example 3: Accessing a Designated Area¶

In the previous example, a local variable (area_addr) was used to capture the starting address of the newly-created area. If some other function wants to access the area, it must “re-find” the starting address (and the length of the area, for boundary checking). To do this, you call get_area_info().

In the following example, an area is passed in by name; the function, which will write its argument buffer to the area, calls get_area_info() to determine the start and extent of the area, and also to make sure that the area is part of this team. If the area was created by some other team, the function could still write to it, but it would have to clone the area first (cloning is demonstrated in the next example).

status_t write_to_area(const char *area_name,
               const void *buf,
               size_t len)
{
   area_id area;
   area_info ai;
   thread_id thread;
   thread_info ti;
   status_t err;

   if (!area_name)
      return B_BAD_VALUE;

   area = find_area(area_name);

   /* Did we find it? */
   if (area < B_OK) {
      printf("Couldn't find area %s.n", area_name);
      return err;
   }

   /* Get the info. */
   err = get_area_info(area, &ai);

   if (err < B_OK) {
      printf("Couldn't get area info.n");
      return err;
   }

   /* Get the team of the calling thread; to do this, we have
   * to look in the thread_info structure.
   */
   err = get_thread_info(find_thread(NULL), &ti);

   if (err < B_OK) {
      printf("Couldn't get thread info.n");
      return err;
   }

   /* Compare this team to the area's team. */
   if (ai.team != ti.team)
      printf("Foreign area.n");
      return B_NOT_ALLOWED;
   }

   /* Make sure we're not going to overflow the area,
   * and make sure this area can be written to.
   */
   if (len > ai.size) {
      printf("Buffer bigger than area.n");
      return B_BAD_VALUE;
   }
   if (!(ai.protection & B_WRITE_AREA)) {
      printf("Can't write to this area.n");
      return B_NOT_ALLOWED;
   }

   /* Now we can write. */
   memcpy(ai.address, buf, len);
   return B_OK;
}

It’s important that you only write to areas that were created or cloned within the calling team. The starting address of a “foreign” area is usually meaningless within your own address space.

You don’t have to check the area’s protection before writing to it (or reading from it). The memory-accessing functions (memcpy(), in this example) will segfault if an invalid read or write is requested.

Example 5: Cloning Addresses¶

It’s sometimes useful for shared areas (in other words, a “source” and a clone) to begin at the same starting address. For example, if a client’s clone area starts at the same address as the server’s original area, then the client and server can pass area-accessing pointers back and forth without having to translate the addresses. Here we modify the previous example to do this:

status_t AClient::make_shared_clone()
{
   area_id src_area;

   src_area = find_area("server area");

   if (src_area < B_ERROR) {
      printf("Couldn't find server area.n");
      return B_BAD_VALUE;
   }

   /* This time, we specify the address that we want the
   * clone to start at. The B_CLONE_ADDRESS constant
   * does this for us.
   */
   area_addr = src_info.address;
   the_area = clone_area("client area",
               (void *)&area_addr,
                  B_CLONE_ADDRESS,
               B_READ_AREA | B_WRITE_AREA,
               src_area);

   if (the_area < B_OK)
      printf("Couldn't create clone arean");
      return the_area;
   }

   return B_OK;
}

Of course, demanding that an area begin at a specific address can be too restrictive; if any of the memory within [area_addr, area_addr + src_info.size] is already allocated, the clone will fail.