HP-UX Reference (11i v3 07/02) - 2 System Calls (vol 5)

serialize(2) serialize(2)

NAME

serialize() - force target process to run serially with other processes

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>

int serialize(int

timeshare, pid_t pid);

DESCRIPTION

The serialize() system call is used to force the target process referenced by the pid value passed in to

run serially with other processes also marked for serialization. If the value of pid is zero, then the

currently running process is marked for serialization. Once a process has been marked by

serialize() ,

the process stays marked until process completion, unless

serialize() is reissued on the serialized pro-

cess with timeshare set to 1. If timeshare is set to 1, the process speciﬁed in pid will be returned to normal

timeshare scheduling algorithms.

This call is used to improve process throughput since process throughput usually increases for large

processes when they are executed serially instead of allowing each program to run for only a short period of

time. By running large processes one at a time, the system makes more efﬁcient use of the CPU as well as

system memory, since each process does not end up constantly faulting in its working set, to only have the

pages stolen when another process starts running. As long as there is enough memory in the system,

processes marked by

serialize() behave no differently from other processes in the system. However,

once memory becomes tight, processes marked by serialize() are run one at a time with the highest

priority processes being run ﬁrst. Each process runs for a ﬁnite interval of time before another serialized

process is allowed to run.

RETURN VALUE

serialize() returns zero upon successful completion, or nonzero if the system call failed.

ERRORS

If serialize() fails, it sets errno (see errno(2)) to the following value:

[ESRCH] The pid passed in does not exist.

WARNINGS

The user has no way of forcing an execution order on serialized processes.

AUTHOR

serialize() was developed by HP.