US 9,286,064 B2Granted

Copying character data having a termination character from one memory location to another

AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation

InventorsJonathan D. Bradbury, Michael K. Gschwind, Timothy J. Slegel

Life of this patent

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Abstract

Copying characters of a set of terminated character data from one memory location to another memory location using parallel processing and without causing unwarranted exceptions. The character data to be copied is loaded within one or more vector registers. In particular, in one embodiment, an instruction (e.g., a Vector Load to block Boundary instruction) is used that loads data in parallel in a vector register to a specified boundary, and provides a way to determine the number of characters loaded. To determine the number of characters loaded (a count), another instruction (e.g., a Load Count to Block Boundary instruction) is used. Further, an instruction (e.g., a Vector Find Element Not Equal instruction) is used to find the index of the first delimiter character, i.e., the first termination character, such as a zero or null character within the character data. This instruction checks a plurality of bytes of data in parallel.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A computer program product for copying a set of data, the computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method comprising:
loading from memory to a register data that is within a specified block of memory, the data being at least a portion of the set of data to be copied, and wherein the loading comprises loading from a starting address in memory to an ending address in memory, wherein the ending address is computed using a boundary size of the specified block of memory and a boundary mask, the boundary mask determined based on the boundary size and used to determine closeness to a specified boundary, and wherein a variable number of bytes of data are loaded from memory absent crossing the specified boundary of the block of memory from which the data is being loaded in the register, the variable number based on the starting address and the ending address;
obtaining a count of an amount of data loaded in the register;
determining, by a processor, a termination value for the data loaded in the register, the determining comprising checking the data to determine whether the register includes a termination character, and based on the register including the termination character, setting the termination value to a location of the termination character, and based on the register not including the termination character, setting the termination value to a pre-specified value;
storing the data loaded in the register in memory at a selected location;
checking whether there is additional data in the set of data to be copied based on at least one of the count and the termination value;
and
based on the checking indicating additional data is to be copied, copying the additional data.

5 more elements

A computer system for copying a set of data, the computer system comprising:

a memory;
and
a processor in communications with the memory, wherein the computer system is configured to perform a method, said method comprising:
loading from memory to a register data that is within a specified block of memory, the data being at least a portion of the set of data to be copied, and wherein the loading comprises loading from a starting address in memory to an ending address in memory, wherein the ending address is computed using a boundary size of the specified block of memory and a boundary mask, the boundary mask determined based on the boundary size and used to determine closeness to a specified boundary, and wherein a variable number of bytes of data are loaded from memory absent crossing the specified boundary of the block of memory from which the data is being loaded in the register, the variable number based on the starting address and the ending address;
obtaining a count of an amount of data loaded in the register;
determining, by a processor, a termination value for the data loaded in the register, the determining comprising checking the data to determine whether the register includes a termination character, and based on the register including the termination character, setting the termination value to a location of the termination character, and based on the register not including the termination character, setting the termination value to a pre-specified value;
storing the data loaded in the register in memory at a selected location;
checking whether there is additional data in the set of data to be copied based on at least one of the count and the termination value;
and
based on the checking indicating additional data is to be copied, copying the additional data.

7 more elements

A method of copying a set of data, the method comprising:

loading from memory to a register data that is within a specified block of memory, the data being at least a portion of the set of data to be copied, and wherein the loading comprises loading from a starting address in memory to an ending address in memory, wherein the ending address is computed using a boundary size of the specified block of memory and a boundary mask, the boundary mask determined based on the boundary size and used to determine closeness to a specified boundary, and wherein a variable number of bytes of data are loaded from memory absent crossing the specified boundary of the block of memory from which the data is being loaded in the register, the variable number based on the starting address and the ending address;
obtaining a count of an amount of data loaded in the register;
determining, by a processor, a termination value for the data loaded in the register, the determining comprising checking the data to determine whether the register includes a termination character, and based on the register including the termination character, setting the termination value to a location of the termination character, and based on the register not including the termination character, setting the termination value to a pre-specified value;
storing the data loaded in the register in memory at a selected location;
checking whether there is additional data in the set of data to be copied based on at least one of the count and the termination value;
and
based on the checking indicating additional data is to be copied, copying the additional data.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 13/421,498Filed 15 Mar 2012
Published: US 2013/0246739 A119 Sep 2013
Granted: 15 Mar 2016
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification5 codes

G06F 9/30018
To perform operations on data operands: bit or string instructions
G06F 9/30043
To perform operations on memory: lOAD or STORE instructions; Clear instruction
G06F 9/30021
To perform operations on data operands: compare instructions, e.g. Greater-Than, Equal-To, MINMAX
G06F 9/30036
To perform operations on data operands: instructions to perform operations on packed data, e.g. vector, tile or matrix operations

Family

US 2013/0246739 A1Pre-grant publication · published 19 Sep 2013
US 9,323,522 B2Related patent
US 9,389,856 B2Related patent
US 9,454,366 B2Related patent
US 9,286,064 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.