I am using windwos xp and i want to append data (about 4 MB each time) to a file.
Using 'WriteFileGather', i increase the offset's value of the overlapped struct all the time.
Since the the system call is a 32 bit, the offset value(DWORD) can not exceed 4GB value.
Code sample:
LARGE_INTEGER size;
if (!GetFileSizeEx(_hFile, &size))
{
return;
}
overlapped.Offset = size.QuadPart;
Using the ftell and fseek is not working for me.
Apparently, 'WriteFileGather' requires the overlapped.offset value to be assigned.
What is the way to exceed the 4G limit?
WriteFileGather takes an OVERLAPPED structure from which it gets the offset within the file at which writing starts. This offset is split into a high and a low doubleword (Offset and OffsetHigh), so it's really a 64-bit offset.
So, if you want to use WriteFileGather (personally, I wouldn't), this is no hindrance. You cannot write more than 4GB in one go (but you wouldn't want to do that anyway!), though the total file length or the offset into the file can be a lot larger than that.
It's a late answer, but 64 bit versions of ftell and fseek exist for Windows and Linux. For Windows, it's _ftelli64 and _fseeki64. For Linux, it's ftello64 and fseeko64.
Related
I'm realizing UART-DMA with STM_HAL library and I want to know if message size is counted by hardware (counting clock ticks till line is idle for example) or by some program method(something like strlen). So if Size in
HAL_UARTEx_RxEventCallback(UART_HandleTypeDef *huart, uint16_t Size)
is counted by hardware, I can send data in pure HEX format, but if it is calculated by something like strline, I may recieve problems if data is 0x00 and have to send data in ASCII.
I've tried to make some research in generated code in Keil but failed (maybe I didn't try hard enough) so maybe somebody can help me.
If you are using UART DMA, it is calculated by hardware.
If you check the call hierarchy of HAL_UARTEx_RxEventCallback using your ide, you can see how the Size variable is calculated.
The function is executed in the following flow.(Depending on the version of HAL Driver, it may be slightly different)
UART Idle Interrupt occur
Call HAL_UART_IRQHandler()
If DMA mod is enabled, Call HAL_UARTEx_RxEventCallback(huart, (huart->RxXferSize - huart->RxXferCount))
Therefore, Size variable is calculated as (huart->RxXferSize - huart->RxXferCount)
huart->RxXferSize is a set value when initializing RX DMA.
huart->RxXferCount is (huart->hdmarx)->Instance->NDTR
NDTR is a value calculated by hardware as the size of the buffer remaining after DMA transfer data to memory!!
A WRITEBLK command fails when the item reaches 2GB in size (item is truncated to 2147483647 bytes).
Using cat I was able to create an item larger than 2GB in the same directory, but opening it in UV gave a corrupt (negative) value for STATUS<4> (Number of bytes available to read).
uv 11.1.4
64bit Linux on a VM
64BIT_FILES = 1
You can make the universe files 32 or 64 bit (regardless of the OS). So you can do a FILEINFO call to see if the file is actually 64bit (even if the account is 64bit).
My guess is that there is an File system limitation on the file size. in the Rocket UniVerse documentation (page 927) it says:
If the device runs out of disk
space, WRITEBLK takes the ELSE clause and returns –4 to the STATUS
function.
Generally only 32 bit systems would be the hard limit on 2 GB, but maybe there is some kind of 32 bit process running in our 64 bit virtual machine that is producing the same effect. See here for a few leads: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/274380/file-size-limit
Im asking this because i am having trouble understanding sector aligned reading when we are reading raw device.
Lets assume whe are in a Windows machined, and we are using the ReadFile() C function to read x bytes from a device.
I know we can only read sector aligned data, but recently i discovered the SetFilePointer() function, that allow us to put a pointer in x bytes of the device we have previously opened with CreateFile().
My question is, if we need to read sector aligned data, if we use SetFilePointer() for example like this:
SetFilePointer(device, 12, NULL, FILE_BEGIN);
(device is a HANDLE to an existing device,for the sake of this example lets assume its a USB pen drive), in that example we set a pointer thatis pointing to the 12th byte starting from FILE_BEGIN.
If i were to read the equivalent of one sector (512 bytes) starting from that 12th byte, would i need to make my read fucntion like this:
ReadFile(device, sector, (512 - 12), &bytesRead, NULL)
or like this:
ReadFile(device, sector, 512, &bytesRead, NULL)
Regardless, thanks!
My question is, if we need to read sector aligned data, if we use SetFilePointer() for example like this:
SetFilePointer(device, 12, NULL, FILE_BEGIN);
... then you are no longer reading sector-aligned data, and you'll get error 87 in the ReadFile call. Reading sector-aligned data doesn't just mean that you have to read in sector-sized blocks, but you must always read blocks that start on sector boundaries.
You have to seek to the sector containing the bytes of your interest (so, position/sector_size*sector_size), read the whole sector and extract the bytes of your interest from the data you read.
Well, it depends..
if you want what's in your buffer to represent an entire sector of the device, and map it using a struct* or byte offsets - that's usually how it's done. then your offsets sent to SetFilePointer should be aligned on the sector size, then read sector sized buffers. So SetFilePointer(0) -> ReadFile(512 bytes)
If you don't care, and just want bytes 12-16, SetFilePointer(12) -> Read(4bytes).
I'd go for solution 1, because it would probably make the code easier to read and maintain in the long run.
I am currently using shared memory with two mapped files (1.9 GBytes for the first one and 600 MBytes for the second) in a software.
I am using a process that read data from the first file, process the data and write the results to the second file.
I have noticed a strong delay sometimes (the reason is out of my knowledge) when reading or writing to the mapping view with memcpy function.
Mapped files are created this way :
m_hFile = ::CreateFileW(SensorFileName,
GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE,
0,
NULL,
CREATE_ALWAYS,
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL,
NULL);
m_hMappedFile = CreateFileMapping(m_hFile,
NULL,
PAGE_READWRITE,
dwFileMapSizeHigh,
dwFileMapSizeLow,
NULL);
And memory mapping is done this way :
m_lpMapView = MapViewOfFile(m_hMappedFile,
FILE_MAP_ALL_ACCESS,
dwOffsetHigh,
dwOffsetLow,
m_i64ViewSize);
The dwOffsetHigh/dwOffsetLow are "matching" granularity from the system info.
The process is reading about 300KB * N times, storing that in a buffer, processing and then writing 300KB * N times the processed contents of the previous buffer to the second file.
I have two different memory views (created/moved with MapViewOfFile function) with a size of 10 MBytes as default size.
For memory view size, I tested 10kBytes, 100kB, 1MB, 10MB and 100MB. Statistically no difference, 80% of the time reading process is as described below (~200ms) but writing process is really slow.
Normally :
1/ Reading is done in ~200ms.
2/ Process done in 2.9 seconds.
3/ Writing is done in ~200ms.
I can see that 80% of the time, either reading or writing (in the worst case both are slow) will take between 2 and 10 seconds.
Example : For writing, I am using the below code
for (unsigned int i = 0 ; i < N ; i++) // N = 500~3k
{
// Check the position of the memory view for ponderation
if (###)
MoveView(iOffset);
if (m_lpMapView)
{
memcpy((BYTE*)m_lpMapView + iOffset, pANNHeader, uiANNStatus);
// uiSize = ~300 kBytes
memcpy((BYTE*)m_lpMapView + iTemp, pLine[i], uiSize);
}
else
return uiANNStatus;
}
After using GetTickCount function to pinpoint where is the delay, I am seeing that the second memcpy call is always the one taking most of the time.
So, so far I am seeing N (for test, I used N = 500) calls to memcpy taking 10 seconds at the worst time when using those shared memories.
I made a temporary software that was doing the same quantity of memcpy calls, same amount of data and couldn't see the problem.
For tests, I used the following conditions, they all show the same delay :
1/ I can see this on various computers, 32 or 64 bits from windows 7 to windows 10.
2/ Using the main thread or multi-threads (up to 8 with critical sections for synchronization purpose) for reading/writing.
3/ OS on SATA or SSD, memory mapped files of the software physically on a SATA or SSD hard-disk, and if on external hard-disk, tests were done through USB1, USB2 or USB3.
I am kindly asking you what you would think my mistake is for memcpy to go slow.
Best regards.
I found a solution that works for me but not might be the case for others.
Following Thomas Matthews comments, I checked the MSDN and found two interesting functions FlushViewOfFile and FlushFileBuffers (but couldn't find anything interesting about locking memory).
Calling both after the for loop force update of the mapped file.
I am having no more "random" delay, but instead of the expected 200ms, I have an average of 400ms which is enough for my application.
After doing some tests I saw that calling those too often will cause heavy hard-disk access and will make the delay worse (10 seconds for every for loop) so the flush should be use carefully.
Thanks.
I am writing an app which receives a binary data stream wtih a simple function call like put(DataBLock, dateTime); where each data package is 4 MB
I have to write these datablocks to seperate files for future use with some additional data like id, insertion time, tag etc...
So I both tried these two methods:
first with FILE:
data.id = seedFileId;
seedFileId++;
std::string fileName = getFileName(data.id);
char *fNameArray = (char*)fileName.c_str();
FILE* pFile;
pFile = fopen(fNameArray,"wb");
fwrite(reinterpret_cast<const char *>(&data.dataTime), 1, sizeof(data.dataTime), pFile);
data.dataInsertionTime = time(0);
fwrite(reinterpret_cast<const char *>(&data.dataInsertionTime), 1, sizeof(data.dataInsertionTime), pFile);
fwrite(reinterpret_cast<const char *>(&data.id), 1, sizeof(long), pFile);
fwrite(reinterpret_cast<const char *>(&data.tag), 1, sizeof(data.tag), pFile);
fwrite(reinterpret_cast<const char *>(&data.data_block[0]), 1, data.data_block.size() * sizeof(int), pFile);
fclose(pFile);
second with ostream:
ofstream fout;
data.id = seedFileId;
seedFileId++;
std::string fileName = getFileName(data.id);
char *fNameArray = (char*)fileName.c_str();
fout.open(fNameArray, ios::out| ios::binary | ios::app);
fout.write(reinterpret_cast<const char *>(&data.dataTime), sizeof(data.dataTime));
data.dataInsertionTime = time(0);
fout.write(reinterpret_cast<const char *>(&data.dataInsertionTime), sizeof(data.dataInsertionTime));
fout.write(reinterpret_cast<const char *>(&data.id), sizeof(long));
fout.write(reinterpret_cast<const char *>(&data.tag), sizeof(data.tag));
fout.write(reinterpret_cast<const char *>(&data.data_block[0]), data.data_block.size() * sizeof(int));
fout.close();
In my tests the first methods looks faster, but my main problem is in both ways at first everythings goes fine, for every file writing operation it tooks almost the same time (like 20 milliseconds), but after the 250 - 300th package it starts to make some peaks like 150 to 300 milliseconds and then goes down to 20 milliseconds and then again 150 ms and so on... So it becomes very unpredictable.
When I put some timers to the code I figured out that the main reason for these peaks are because of the fout.open(...) and pfile = fopen(...) lines. I have no idea if this is because of the operating system, hard drive, any kind of cache or buffer mechanism etc...
So the question is; why these file opening lines become problematic after some time, and is there a way to make file writing operation stable, I mean fixed time?
Thanks.
NOTE: I'm using Visual studio 2008 vc++, Windows 7 x64. (I tried also for 32 bit configuration but the result is same)
EDIT: After some point writing speed slows down as well even if the opening file time is minimum. I tried with different package sizes so here are the results:
For 2 MB packages it takes double time to slow down, I mean after ~ 600th item slowing down begins
For 4 MB packages almost 300th item
For 8 MB packages almost 150th item
So it seems to me it is some sort of caching problem or something? (in hard drive or OS). But I also tried with disabling hard drive cache but nothing changed...
Any idea?
This is all perfectly normal, you are observing the behavior of the file system cache. Which is a chunk of RAM that's is set aside by the operating system to buffer disk data. It is normally a fat gigabyte, can be much more if your machine has lots of RAM. Sounds like you've got 4 GB installed, not that much for a 64-bit operating system. Depends however on the RAM needs of other processes that run on the machine.
Your calls to fwrite() or ofstream::write() write to a small buffer created by the CRT, it in turns make operating system calls to flush full buffers. The OS writes normally completely very quickly, it is a simple memory-to-memory copy going from the CRT buffer to the file system cache. Effective write speed is in excess of a gigabyte/second.
The file system driver lazily writes the file system cache data to the disk. Optimized to minimize the seek time on the write head, by far the most expensive operation on the disk drive. Effective write speed is determined by the rotational speed of the disk platter and the time needed to position the write head. Typical is around 30 megabytes/second for consumer-level drives, give or take a factor of 2.
Perhaps you see the fire-hose problem here. You are writing to the file cache a lot faster than it can be emptied. This does hit the wall eventually, you'll manage to fill the cache to capacity and suddenly see the perf of your program fall off a cliff. Your program must now wait until space opens up in the cache so the write can complete, effective write speed is now throttled by disk write speeds.
The 20 msec delays you observe are normal as well. That's typically how long it takes to open a file. That is a time that's completely dominated by disk head seek times, it needs to travel to the file system index to write the directory entry. Nominal times are between 20 and 50 msec, you are on the low end of that already.
Clearly there is very little you can do in your code to improve this. What CRT functions you use certainly don't make any difference, as you found out. At best you could increase the size of the files you write, that reduces the overhead spent on creating the file.
Buying more RAM is always a good idea. But it of course merely delays the moment where the firehose overflows the bucket. You need better drive hardware to get ahead. An SSD is pretty nice, so is a striped raid array. Best thing to do is to simply not wait for your program to complete :)
So the question is; why these file opening lines become problematic
after some time, and is there a way to make file writing operation
stable, I mean fixed time?
This observation(.i.e. varying time taken in write operation) does not mean that there is problem in OS or File System.There could be various reason behind your observation. One possible reason could be the delayed write may be used by kernel to write the data to disk. Sometime kernel cache it(buffer) in case another process should read or write it soon so that extra disk operation can be avoided.
This situation may lead to inconsistency in the time taken in different write call for same size of data/buffer.
File I/O is bit complex and complicated topic and depends on various other factors. For complete information on internal algorithm on File System, you may want to refer the great great classic book "The Design Of UNIX Operating System" By Maurice J Bach which describes these concepts and the implementation in detailed way.
Having said that, you may want to use the flush call immediately after your write call in both version of your program(.i.e. C and C++). This way you may get the consistent time in your file I/O write time. Otherwise your programs behaviour look correct to me.
//C program
fwrite(data,fp);
fflush(fp);
//C++ Program
fout.write(data);
fout.flush();
It's possible that the spikes are not related to I/O itself, but NTFS metadata: when your file count reach some limit, some NTFS AVL-like data structure needs some refactoring and... bump!
To check it you should preallocate the file entries, for example creating all the files with zero size, and then opening them when writing, just for testing: if my theory is correct you shouldn't see your spikes anymore.
UHH - and you must disable file indexing (Windows search service) there! Just remembered of it... see here.