In operating systems, write barrier is a mechanism for enforcing a particular ordering in a sequence of writes to a storage system in a computer system. For example, a write barrier in a file system is a mechanism (program logic) that ensures that in-memory file system state is written out to persistent storage in the correct order.
In garbage collection
A write barrier in a garbage collector is a fragment of code emitted by the compiler immediately before every store operation to ensure that (e.g.) generational invariants are maintained.
In computer storage
A write barrier in a memory system, also known as a memory barrier, is a hardware-specific compiler intrinsic that ensures that all preceding memory operations "happen before" all subsequent ones.
See also
References
- "Chapter 16. Write Barriers". docs.fedoraproject.org. Archived from the original on 2022-06-08. Retrieved 2014-01-24.
- Tejun Heo (2005-07-22). "I/O Barriers". kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git - Linux kernel source tree. git.kernel.org. Retrieved 2014-01-24.
- Jonathan Corbet (2010-08-18). "The end of block barriers". LWN.net. Retrieved 2014-01-24.
- Zorn, Benjamin (1990). Barrier methods for Garbage Collection. Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado in Boulder: Citeseer. pp. 11–18. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.52.8857.
- "GC FAQ -- algorithms". www.iecc.com. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
External links
- Barriers and journaling filesystems (LWN.net, May 21, 2008)
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