[Python-Dev] mmapfile module

[Andrew M. Kuchling]

Guido van Rossum writes:
>Hm, this seems to require a higher-level Python module to hide the
>differences.  Maybe the Unix version could also use a filename?  I
>would think that mmap'ed files should always be backed by a file (not
>by a pipe, socket etc.).  Or is there an issue with secure creation of
>temp files?  This is a question for a separate thread.

Hmm... I don't know of any way to use mmap() on non-file things,
either; there are odd special cases, like using MAP_ANONYMOUS on
/dev/zero to allocate memory, but that's still using a file.  On the
other hand, there may be some special case where you need to do that.
We could add a fileno() method to get the file descriptor, but I don't
know if that's useful to Windows.  (Is Sam Rushing, the original
author of the Win32 mmapfile, on this list?)  

What do we do about the tagname, which is a Win32 argument that has no
Unix counterpart -- I'm not even sure what its function is.

-- 
A.M. Kuchling			http://starship.python.net/crew/amk/
I had it in me to be the Pierce Brosnan of my generation.
    -- Vincent Me's past career plans in EGYPT #1