[PLUG] 64bit Numbers in C & /proc/pid/pagemap

[Casey Bralla <MailList@NerdWorld.org>]

I'm still working on my application which displays where in memory an 
application resides.    I have found that there is a relatively new pseudo 
file called /proc/pid/pagemap which is a Page Frame table for the process in 
question.

I'm having some trouble reading this data file which, unlike most files in 
the /proc directory, is stored as a 64-bit number instead of ASCII characters.   
I suspect my difficulties in reading this data are related to my lack of 
familiarity with C data structures.    Could someone take a look at the 
following excerpt from the kernel text file and help me understand a few 
things?  



Here is the excerpt from /usr/src/linux/Documentation/vm/pagemap.txt

 * /proc/pid/pagemap.  This file lets a userspace process find out which
   physical frame each virtual page is mapped to.  It contains one 64-bit
   value for each virtual page, containing the following data (from
   fs/proc/task_mmu.c, above pagemap_read):

    * Bits 0-55  page frame number (PFN) if present
    * Bits 0-4   swap type if swapped
    * Bits 5-55  swap offset if swapped
    * Bits 55-60 page shift (page size = 1<<page shift)
    * Bit  61    reserved for future use
    * Bit  62    page swapped
    * Bit  63    page present

   If the page is not present but in swap, then the PFN contains an
   encoding of the swap file number and the page's offset into the
   swap. Unmapped pages return a null PFN. This allows determining
   precisely which pages are mapped (or in swap) and comparing mapped
   pages between processes.




I'm assuming that the first 7 bytes are the the PFN, and that byte 0 (bits 0 - 
7) are the highest order portion, and that bits 48-55 are in the lowest.  
Maybe I have this backward?

I'm also assuming that bit 62 would be a "1" if the page is swapped, and a "0" 
if it is resident.   Bit 62 should be in the 8th byte read from this file, 
no?


The odd thing is that I'm continually seeing almost all zeros in the PFN, and 
the last 3 bits are set to "110" (ie: the last hex digit is "6").   This means 
that almost every page has the "reserved" bit set, and almost every page 
is "swapped".   This doesn't make much sense, however, since I have lots of 
ram and very little of my swap space is being used.


I would appreciate any thoughts or comments from the list.

-- 


Casey Bralla
Chief Nerd in Residence
The NerdWorld Organisation
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