Abstract: An operating system of a data processing system receives a request from a first process to acquire an exclusive lock for accessing a resource of the data processing system. A second priority of a second process is increased to reduce total execution time. The second process is currently in possession of the exclusive lock for performing a transactional operation with the resource. The second priority was lower than a first priority of the first process. The operating system notifies the second process to indicate that another process is waiting for the exclusive lock to allow the second process to complete or roll back the transactional operation and to release the exclusive lock thereafter.

Abstract: Guarded file access operations are provided for creating and using guarded file descriptors, which can detect and prevent erroneous file access operations in computer programs. A file descriptor can be associated with a guard identifier to create a guarded file descriptor. The association can be established when the file is opened, and can be maintained independently of the computer program, which ordinarily maintains its own association between files, file descriptors, and guard identifiers. Subsequent file operations using the guarded file descriptor check that the guard identifier previously associated with that file descriptor is presented, and generate errors without performing the requested file operations if the correct guard identifier is not presented. This check serves as a validation of the computer program's use of file descriptors. An error and stack trace can be generated for use in analyzing a cause of the guard violation.

Abstract: An operating system of a data processing system receives a request from a first process to acquire an exclusive lock for accessing a resource of the data processing system. A second priority of a second process is increased to reduce total execution time. The second process is currently in possession of the exclusive lock for performing a transactional operation with the resource. The second priority was lower than a first priority of the first process. The operating system notifies the second process to indicate that another process is waiting for the exclusive lock to allow the second process to complete or roll back the transactional operation and to release the exclusive lock thereafter.

Abstract: In a method of writing data to a file system on a solid state drive, a file stream is opened for writing to a file in the file system. A life expectancy value predicting a length of time the data to be written will be stored in the file system is attached to the file stream. The data is written to the file stream and stored on the solid state storage device according to the life expectancy value attached to the data. In one embodiment, a unique identifier may be used as the life expectancy value for writing a group of related files predicted to be stored in the file system for substantially the same length of time. The life expectancy value may be predicted based on a file type of the file being written. The life expectancy value may be stored as metadata for the file being written.

Abstract: Guarded file access operations are provided for creating and using guarded file descriptors, which can detect and prevent erroneous file access operations in computer programs. A file descriptor can be associated with a guard identifier to create a guarded file descriptor. The association can be established when the file is opened, and can be maintained independently of the computer program, which ordinarily maintains its own association between files, file descriptors, and guard identifiers. Subsequent file operations using the guarded file descriptor check that the guard identifier previously associated with that file descriptor is presented, and generate errors without performing the requested file operations if the correct guard identifier is not presented. This check serves as a validation of the computer program's use of file descriptors. An error and stack trace can be generated for use in analyzing a cause of the guard violation.

Abstract: In a method of writing data to a file system on a solid state drive, a file stream is opened for writing to a file in the file system. A life expectancy value predicting a length of time the data to be written will be stored in the file system is attached to the file stream. The data is written to the file stream and stored on the solid state storage device according to the life expectancy value attached to the data. In one embodiment, a unique identifier may be used as the life expectancy value for writing a group of related files predicted to be stored in the file system for substantially the same length of time. The life expectancy value may be predicted based on a file type of the file being written. The life expectancy value may be stored as metadata for the file being written.