[Boost-users] [Interprocess] managed_shared_memory problem in 64-bit windows (v. 1.48.0)

Subject: [Boost-users] [Interprocess] managed_shared_memory problem in 64-bit windows (v. 1.48.0)
From: Michel Lestrade (michel.lestrade_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-12-20 15:00:34

Hi,

I am trying to make a shared memory block between 2 Intel Fortran 
programs and thought to use a small C/C++ lib file to accomplish this: 
Fortran can use the ISO_C_BINDING module to make its pointers point to C 
objects but not vice versa and there is a vast Fortran code base which 
we have no intention of porting.

There is a native pipe mechanism but given the amount of data I will be 
exchanging, disk access is something I want to avoid. The application is 
FEM modeling and the sparse matrix can be several hundred MBs; as the 
program evolves and the matrix changes, I expect hundreds of GBs of data 
in total I/O. Seems like it would be better to have a shared memory 
region and let the OS manage things as much as possible.

Starting small to test the idea, I am running into trouble with 
something which seems easy enough to do in the examples but which only 
seems to work in 32-bit. Here is an incomplete fragment (got stuck early):

#include <string>
#include <boost/interprocess/managed_shared_memory.hpp>
using namespace boost::interprocess;

struct shm_remove
{
   shm_remove(const char *input)
   {
     name = std::string(input);
     shared_memory_object::remove(name.c_str());
   }
   ~shm_remove() {shared_memory_object::remove(name.c_str());}
   std::string name;
} *remover;

extern "C" void alloc_mumps(const int n, const int nnz, const char *name)
{
   int size_shm = sizeof(int)*(2+2*nnz) + sizeof(double)*(nnz+2*n);

   remover = new shm_remove(name);	
   managed_shared_memory managed_shm(create_only,name,size_shm);

   // Trying to do the equivalent of *i = new int
   int *i  = managed_shm.construct<int>(anonymous_instance)[1](n);
}

Calling the function with n=3 and nnz=6 (a very small value compared to 
my final application) works OK when the application is compiled under 
32-bit. Compiling under 64-bit produces an access violation error in 
win32_api.hpp:

inline long interlocked_compare_exchange(long volatile *addr, long val1, 
long val2)
{  return BOOST_INTERLOCKED_COMPARE_EXCHANGE(addr, val1, val2);  }

values in debugger: addr=0, val1=1 val2=0.

I do not know enough about Boost to know whether this is a design 
limitation, a bug or just an issue with my initial build. Just for 
reference, this is what I used:

bjam --toolset=msvc-9.0 address-model=64 --build-type=complete stage

Any suggestions ?

Michel Lestrade
Crosslight Software