Mechanism for enabling multiple processes to share physical memory

摘要

A mechanism is disclosed for enabling multiple processes to share the same portion of physical memory. The first time an instance of a process is executed, a list of common components is compiled. The compiled code is then written into a newly created mappable data structure, which is stored into persistent storage. The next time an instance of that process is executed, the mappable data structure is mapped into a portion of the process instance's virtual memory space. This enables the process instance to invoke the compiled code for the common components. Multiple instances of the process may have their virtual memory spaces mapped to the same mappable data structure in this way. Thereafter, it is up to the operating system to load the contents of the mappable data structure into a portion of physical memory, and to ensure that all of the process instances share that physical memory portion.