Re: OT: Solaris expertise?

L2 cache is managed by the hardware inside the CPU - everything goes through here, so you don't (can't) "allocate" in it. However, if you take care to keep your code efficiently small, then the L2 cache will end up containing your entire codeset, and thus run faster.

It looks like the casx instruction is giving ASM programmers some means to directly use the L2 cache, outside of the normal CPU hardware cache management.

If "casx" isn't an intel instruction, then forget about using it on that processor!

None of this seems relevant to perl shared memory though - where does perl come into this???

Comment on Re: OT: Solaris expertise?

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Re^2: OT: Solaris expertise? by marto (Cardinal) on Feb 20, 2012 at 11:04 UTC
"where does perl come into this???" It doesn't have to. Threads marked 'OT' or 'Off topic' often have relevance to computing issues loosly associated with perl, while not being perl specific.	[reply]
Re^2: OT: Solaris expertise? by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Feb 20, 2012 at 11:47 UTC
If "casx" isn't an intel instruction, then forget about using it on that processor! All modern SMP & multi-core processors have 'atomic compare and swap' instructions. (IBM CPUs invented them back in the early 1970s.) On Intel & AMD x64 processors thay are called variously: CMPXCHG8B & CMPXCHG16B (amongst other variations). The question was purely about the particular semantics of the Solaris version as that was used by the researchers of the paper I was reading. It was important for me to understand those semantics so that I could work out whether the x64 equivalents were compatible with their algorithms. They are (kinda). None of this seems relevant to perl shared memory though - where does perl come into this??? It is. Or rather it will be soon. With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday' Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error. "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice. The start of some sanity?	[reply]