myshm

Myshm is a hypothetical software library designed to simplify the use of shared memory for interprocess communication. It provides a high-level API to create, name, map, and manage shared memory segments on multiple platforms, with an emphasis on portability, safety, and performance.

The design aims for a uniform API across Unix-like systems and Windows, support for named and anonymous shared memory, and easy data interchange through serialization utilities. It abstracts platform specifics such as POSIX shm_open and Windows memory-mapped files behind a concise interface.

Core concepts include memory pools, segment lifetimes, synchronization primitives, and versioned data structures. Segments can be created with configurable sizes, optionally persisted to disk, and managed with clear ownership rules and lifecycle semantics.

The architecture centers on a small core library that handles segment management and synchronization, with platform adapters implementing the underlying system calls. Language bindings exist for C and higher-level languages such as Python and Go.

A typical usage pattern involves initializing the library, creating or opening a named segment, mapping it into the process address space, reading or writing structured data, coordinating with other processes via the provided locks or semaphores, and finally unmapping and closing the segment.

Limitations include performance variability due to synchronization, potential data layout constraints when sharing across languages, and security considerations for access control. Testing shared memory code requires careful isolation to avoid leaks or data races.