University of Washington
Roadmap Memory & data
Integers & floats
Machine code & C
C: Java:
x86 assembly
car *c = malloc(sizeof(car)); Car c = new Car(); Procedures & stacks
c->miles = 100; c.setMiles(100);
Arrays & structs
c->gals = 17; c.setGals(17);
float mpg = get_mpg(c); float mpg =
Memory & caches
free(c); c.getMPG(); Processes
Virtual memory
Assembly get_mpg: Memory allocation
language: pushq %rbp Java vs. C
movq %rsp, %rbp
...
popq %rbp
ret
OS:
Machine 0111010000011000
100011010000010000000010
code: 1000100111000010
110000011111101000011111
Computer
system:
Processes
University of Washington
Section 8: Processes
What is a process
Creating processes
Fork-Exec
Processes
University of Washington
What is a process?
Why are we learning about processes?
Processes are another abstraction in our computer system – the
process abstraction provides an interface between the program and the
underlying CPU + memory.
What do processes have to do with exceptional control flow?
Exceptional control flow is the mechanism that the OS uses to enable
multiple processes to run on the same system.
What is a program? A processor? A process?
Processes
University of Washington
Processes
Definition: A process is an instance of a running program
One of the most important ideas in computer science
Not the same as “program” or “processor”
Process provides each program with two key abstractions:
Logical control flow
Each process seems to have exclusive use of the CPU
Private virtual address space
Each process seems to have exclusive use of main memory
Why are these illusions important?
How are these illusions maintained?
Process executions interleaved (multi-tasking)
Address spaces managed by virtual memory system – next course topic
Processes
University of Washington
Concurrent Processes
Two processes run concurrently (are concurrent) if their
instruction executions (flows) overlap in time
Otherwise, they are sequential
Examples:
Concurrent: A & B, A & C
Sequential: B & C
Process A Process B Process C
time
Processes
University of Washington
User View of Concurrent Processes
Control flows for concurrent processes are physically disjoint
in time
CPU only executes instructions for one process at a time
However, we can think of concurrent processes as executing
in parallel
Process A Process B Process C
time
Processes
University of Washington
Context Switching
Processes are managed by a shared chunk of OS code
called the kernel
Important: the kernel is not a separate process, but rather runs as part
of a user process
Control flow passes from one process to another via a context
switch… (how?)
Process A Process B
user code
kernel code context switch
time user code
kernel code context switch
user code
Processes
