Newbie question on paging..

[Grant Edwards]

In article <388DF473.1ED172A4 at wjk.mv.com>, Wm. King wrote:

>I have heard of paging but never really dug into it or used
>paging. I realize it has to do with handling large amounts of
>data on systems that might not have enough memory to handle it
>all at once? (Is this a correct assumption?)

Yes.

>Does it have something to do with swapping stuff in and out of
>memory? 

Yes.

>So in the final analysis, I am wondering what paging really is,
>under what kind of circumstances one would use paging and how
>one might use it using Python.

Paging is handled by the OS, not by the application.

Lets say you declare a really large array in C: 

unsigned char myBuffer[40000000]; 

Now you only use one part of it at a time. The OS makes sure
that the part you're using is in RAM.  The rest may be on a
swap partition of a hard disk drive.  You don't have to worry
about it, it all happens as if by magic.

>Or maybe a pointer to some on-line document or book so that I
>can get a better handle on it......

Any text on OS design should discuss it. "Operating System
Design [the Xinu Approach]" by Comer, and "Operating Systems
Design and Implementation" by Tannenbaum are the ones I see on
my bookshelf.

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