International Business Machines Corporation

Michael Thomas Collins

Michael Wayne Brown

Kelvin Roderick Lawrence

James Lyle Peterson

Weiming Gu

Paul Jerome Kilpatrick

Weining Gu

A method and apparatus for managing memory allocation. Each memory block category contains memory blocks. A request, including an object size, is received to allocate memory to an object. An available memory block is allocated to the object if the memory block category for size corresponding to the object size of the object contains an available memory block. An available memory block from a memory block category having a memory block size larger than the object size is located if an available memory block is absent in the memory block category for sizes corresponding to the object size. The located available memory block is partitioned into memory blocks, having a size corresponding to the object size. A partitioned memory block from the partitioned memory blocks is allocated to the object.

Method and apparatus for efficiently allocating objects in object oriented systems

The present invention is directed to a system, method, and computer-readable medium for providing a highly efficient locking mechanism for an object's shared data. The locking mechanism is bound to an object during program execution (i.e. during run-time) when synchronization is first requested for the object's shared data. Thus, there are no changes to the actual code, either source code or binary code, which defines the object. A locking mechanism is bound to an object by defining a memory area within the object's header, which either contains the locking mechanism or a pointer to a locking mechanism. The locking mechanism remains bound to the object for the life of the object. Efficiency is gained by limiting the use of operating system semaphores (i.e. kernel semaphores). Operating system semaphores are not used unless blocking (i.e. contention) occurs. Rather, the locking mechanism bound to the object is used during non-blocking situations. Additional efficiency is gained by not assigning or initializing an object's locking mechanism until the first synchronization request is received for the object's shared data. In one embodiment of the present invention, the object's header memory area contains the actual locking mechanism. In another embodiment of the present invention, the object's header memory area contains a pointer or index to a locking mechanism.

System and method for adding highly optimized synchronization capability to objects at run-time

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

Michael Thomas Collins