cacheinfo

Cacheinfo is a term used to describe information about the cache memory configuration of a computer system. It encompasses details about CPU caches at multiple levels (such as L1, L2, and L3), including cache type (data, instruction, or unified), size, associativity, line size, and how caches are shared among cores. Cacheinfo is used by operating systems, profiling tools, and performance-oriented software to understand and optimize cache utilization.

In Linux systems, cache topology is exposed through the sysfs hierarchy for each processor. The per-CPU cache directories typically include attributes such as type, level, size, coherency_line_size, number_of_sets, ways_of_associativity, and shared_cpu_map. This information enables tools to map the cache structure and determine which CPUs share caches. Common utilities and libraries that report or utilize cacheinfo include lscpu and the hwloc toolkit, which can display cache topology and processor affinity details.

Cacheinfo is important for performance optimization because cache behavior heavily influences execution time. Developers use cacheinfo to inform decisions about data structures, memory layout, and access patterns to improve locality and reduce cache misses. It can also guide thread pinning, memory allocation strategies, and compiler optimizations aimed at aligning work with the underlying cache architecture.

See also: CPU cache, cache line, cache topology, NUMA, cache-aware programming.