SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING EFFICIENT SHARED MEMORY IN A VIRTUAL MEMORY SYSTEM

A method and system for allowing multiple tasks to share virtual memory areas, in a memory management system for a computer, uses an independent address space created such that it can be "attached" to multiple address spaces. Any change to the shared address space is reflected in all attached address spaces with just one operation to the shared address space. Entities in the shared address space require only one set of system resources. Since the same powerPC virtual segment ID is used for all attached address spaces, only one set of powerPC page table entries is needed. A feature is attaching shared memory with and without control privileges to provide protection; tasks with privilege can manipulate the address space using the same operations and base addresses as in the non-shared normal address space, and tasks with normal attachment can only reference the memory objects in the overlaid shared address space--memory objects can not be created or destroyed.