The madvise() function advises the kernel that a region of user mapped memory in the range [addr, addr + len) will be accessed following a type of pattern. The kernel uses this information to optimize the procedure
for manipulating and maintaining the resources associated with the specified mapping range.
Values for advice are defined in <sys/mman.h> as:
#define MADV_NORMAL 0x0 /* No further special treatment */
#define MADV_RANDOM 0x1 /* Expect random page references */
#define MADV_SEQUENTIAL 0x2 /* Expect sequential page references */
#define MADV_WILLNEED 0x3 /* Will need these pages */
#define MADV_DONTNEED 0x4 /* Don't need these pages */
#define MADV_FREE 0x5 /* Contents can be freed */
#define MADV_ACCESS_DEFAULT 0x6 /* default access */
#define MADV_ACCESS_LWP 0x7 /* next LWP to access heavily */
#define MADV_ACCESS_MANY 0x8 /* many processes to access heavily */
MADV_NORMAL
This is the default system characteristic where accessing memory within the address range causes the system to read data from the mapped file. The kernel reads all data from files into pages which are retained
for a period of time as a "cache." System pages can be a scarce resource, so the kernel steals pages from other mappings when needed. This is a likely occurrence, but adversely affects system performance only if a large amount of memory is accessed.
MADV_RANDOM
Tell the kernel to read in a minimum amount of data from a mapped file on any single particular access. If MADV_NORMAL is in effect when an address of a mapped file
is accessed, the system tries to read in as much data from the file as reasonable, in anticipation of other accesses within a certain locality.
MADV_SEQUENTIAL
Tell the system that addresses in this range are likely to be accessed only once, so the system will free the resources mapping the address range as quickly as possible.
MADV_WILLNEED
Tell the system that a certain address range is definitely needed so the kernel will start reading the specified range into memory. This can benefit programs wanting to minimize the time needed to access
memory the first time, as the kernel would need to read in from the file.
MADV_DONTNEED
Tell the kernel that the specified address range is no longer needed, so the system starts to free the resources associated with the address range.
MADV_FREE
Tell the kernel that contents in the specified address range are no longer important and the range will be overwritten. When there is demand for memory, the system will free pages associated with the specified address range. In this
instance, the next time a page in the address range is referenced, it will contain all zeroes. Otherwise, it will contain the data that was there prior to the MADV_FREE call. References made to the address range will not make the system read from backing store (swap space) until the
page is modified again.
This value cannot be used on mappings that have underlying file objects.
MADV_ACCESS_LWP
Tell the kernel that the next LWP to touch the specified address range will access it most heavily, so the kernel should try to allocate the memory and other resources for this range and the LWP accordingly.
MADV_ACCESS_MANY
Tell the kernel that many processes and/or LWPs will access the specified address range randomly across the machine, so the kernel should try to allocate the memory and other resources for this range accordingly.
MADV_ACCESS_DEFAULT
Reset the kernel's expectation for how the specified range will be accessed to the default.
The madvise() function should be used by applications with specific knowledge of their access patterns over a memory object, such as a mapped file, to increase system performance.
RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, madvise() returns 0; otherwise, it returns -1 and sets errno to indicate the error.
ERRORS
EAGAIN
Some or all mappings in the address range [addr, addr + len) are locked for I/O.
EBUSY
Some or all of the addresses in the range [addr, addr + len) are locked and MS_SYNC with the MS_INVALIDATE option is specified.
EFAULT
Some or all of the addresses in the specified range could not be read into memory from the underlying object when performing MADV_WILLNEED. The madvise() function could return prior to this condition
being detected, in which case errno will not be set to EFAULT.
EINVAL
The addr argument is not a multiple of the page size as returned by sysconf(3C),
the length of the specified address range is equal to 0, or the advice argument was invalid.
EIO
An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
ENOMEM
Addresses in the range [addr, addr + len) are outside the valid range for the address space of a process, or specify one or more pages that are not mapped.
ESTALE
Stale NFS file handle.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
