Product Design Documents

1. Introduction

This is the catalogue of design documents of the Memory Pool System product.

This is not a complete set of design documents for the MPS. We have many hundreds of documents, many of which contain confidential information. We are sorting through these and will include more as time goes on. We have tried to select the key documents for inclusion in the open source release, by including those documents referenced by the source code.

This document will be modified as the product is developed.

The readership of this document is the product developers.

This document is not confidential.

2. Designs

alloc-frame/ Design of the MPS allocation frame protocol
arena/ The design of the MPS arena
arenavm/ Virtual memory arena
bt/ Bit tables
buffer/ Allocation buffers and allocation points
cbs/ Design for coalescing block structure
check/ Design of checking in MPS
class-interface/ Design of the pool class interface
collection/ The collection framework
config/ The design of MPS configuration
critical-path The critical path through the MPS
cstyle/ Coding standard: how C source code should be formatted
diag/ The design of MPS diagnostic feedback
finalize/ Finalization
fix/ The Design of the Generic Fix Function
interface-c/ The design of the Memory Pool System interface to C
io/ The design of the MPS i/o subsystem
lib/ The design of the Memory Pool System library interface
lock/ The design of the lock module
locus/ The design for the locus manager
message/ MPS to client message protocol
message-gc/ Messages sent when garbage collection begins or ends
object-debug/ Debugging Features for Client Objects
pool/ The design of the pool and pool class mechanisms
poolamc/ The design of the automatic mostly-copying memory pool class
poolams/ The design of the automatic mark-and-sweep pool class
poolawl/ Automatic weak linked
poollo/ Leaf object pool class
poolmfs/ The design of the manual fixed small memory pool class
poolmrg/ Guardian poolclass
poolmv/ The design of the manual variable memory pool class
poolmvt/ The design of a new manual-variable memory pool class
poolmvff/ Design of the manually-managed variable-size first-fit pool
prot/ Generic design of the protection module
protan/ ANSI implementation of protection module
protli/ Linux implementation of protection module
protocol/ The design for protocol inheritance in MPS
protsu/ SunOS 4 implementation of protection module
pthreadext/ Design of the Posix thread extensions for MPS
reservoir/ The design of the low-memory reservoir
ring/ The design of the ring data structure
root/ The design of the root manager
scan/ The design of the generic scanner
seg/ The design of the MPS segment data structure
shield/ Shield abstraction: separate control of collector access and mutator (client) access to memory
sig/ The design of the Memory Pool System signature system
splay/ Design of splay trees
sso1al/ Stack scanner for Digital Unix / Alpha systems
telemetry/ The design of the MPS telemetry mechanism
tests/ The design of MPS internal tests
thread-manager/ The design of the MPS thread manager
thread-safety/ Thread Safety in the MPS
trace/ Tracer
type/ The design of the general MPS types
version-library/ Design of the MPS library version mechanism
version/ Design of MPS software versions
vm/ The design of the virtual mapping interface
vman/ ANSI fake VM
vmo1/ VM Module on DEC Unix
vmso/ VM Design for Solaris
writef/ The design of the MPS writef function

A. References

B. Document History

2002-05-23 RB Created empty catalogue based on P4DTI design document catalogue.
2002-06-07 RB Added a bunch of design documents referenced by the source code.
2002-06-21 NB Remove P4DTI reference, which doesn't fit here. Maybe one day we'll have a corporate design document procedure.
2002-06-24 RB Added fix, object-debug, thread-manager, and thread-safety.
2007-02-08 RHSK Added message-gc and shield.
2007-06-12 RHSK Added cstyle.
2007-06-28 RHSK Added diag.
2008-12-04 RHSK Added tests.
2008-12-10 RHSK Correct description of message-gc: gc begin or end.
2012-09-14 RB Added link to critical-path

C. Licence

This document is copyright © 2002, 2007, 2008 Ravenbrook Limited. All rights reserved. This is an open source license. Contact Ravenbrook for commercial licensing options.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

  1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
  2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
  3. Redistributions in any form must be accompanied by information on how to obtain complete source code for this software and any accompanying software that uses this software. The source code must either be included in the distribution or be available for no more than the cost of distribution plus a nominal fee, and must be freely redistributable under reasonable conditions. For an executable file, complete source code means the source code for all modules it contains. It does not include source code for modules or files that typically accompany the major components of the operating system on which the executable file runs.

This software is provided by the copyright holders and contributors "as is" and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement, are disclaimed. In no event shall the copyright holders and contributors be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.