The
mmap function causes the pages starting at
addr and continuing for at most
len bytes to be mapped from the object described by
fd, starting at byte offset
offset. If
len is not a multiple of the pagesize, the mapped region may extend past the specified range. Any such extension beyond the end of the mapped object will be zero-filled.
If
addr is non-zero, it is used as a hint to the system. (As a convenience to the system, the actual address of the region may differ from the address supplied.) If
addr is zero, an address will be selected by the system. The actual starting address of the region is returned. A successful
mmap deletes any previous mapping in the allocated address range.
The protections (region accessibility) are specified in the
prot argument by
OR'ing the following values:
PROT_EXEC
Pages may be executed.
PROT_READ
Pages may be read.
PROT_WRITE
Pages may be written.
PROT_NONE
Pages may not be accessed.
Note that, due to hardware limitations, on some platforms PROT_WRITE may imply PROT_READ, and PROT_READ may imply PROT_EXEC. Portable programs should not rely on these flags being separately enforceable.
The
flags parameter specifies the type of the mapped object, mapping options and whether modifications made to the mapped copy of the page are private to the process or are to be shared with other references. Note that either
MAP_SHARED or
MAP_PRIVATE must be specified. Sharing, mapping type and options are specified in the
flags argument by
OR'ing the following values:
MAP_ALIGNED(n)
Request that the allocation be aligned to the given boundary. The parameter
n should be the base 2 logarithm of the desired alignment (e.g., to request alignment to 16K, use 14 as the value for n). The alignment must be equal to or greater than the platform's page size as returned by
sysconf(3) with the
_SC_PAGESIZE request.
MAP_ANON
Map anonymous memory not associated with any specific file. The file descriptor is not used for creating MAP_ANON regions, and must be specified as -1. The mapped memory will be zero filled.
MAP_FILE
Mapped from a regular file or character-special device memory.
MAP_FIXED
Do not permit the system to select a different address than the one specified. If the specified address cannot be used, mmap will fail. If MAP_FIXED is specified, addr must be a multiple of the pagesize. Use of this option is discouraged.
MAP_HASSEMAPHORE
Notify the kernel that the region may contain semaphores and that special handling may be necessary.
MAP_INHERIT
Permit regions to be inherited across
execve(2) system calls.
MAP_TRYFIXED
Attempt to use the address addr even if it falls within the normally protected process data or text segment memory regions. If the requested region of memory is actually present in the memory map, a different address will be selected as if MAP_TRYFIXED had not been specified. If addr is NULL, this flag is ignored and the system will select a mapping address.
MAP_WIRED
Lock the mapped region into memory as with
mlock(2).
MAP_PRIVATE
Modifications made by this process are private, however modifications made by other processes using MAP_SHARED will be seen.
MAP_SHARED
Modifications are shared.
The
close(2) function does not unmap pages, see
munmap(2) for further information.
The current design does not allow a process to specify the location of swap space. In the future we may define an additional mapping type,
MAP_SWAP, in which the file descriptor argument specifies a file or device to which swapping should be done.
If
MAP_FIXED is not specified, the system will attempt to place the mapping in an unused portion of the address space chosen to minimize possible collision between mapped regions and the heap.