JP2003030043A - Memory managing method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a memory managing method to prevent the occurrence of an abnormal operation due to the shortage of memory capacity during display processing. SOLUTION: The memory managing method of a controller includes an application processing part consisting of a program to execute prescribed functions, a graph control part to calculate the memory capacity required for display, a storage part to store data for the application processing part and plotting control, and a storage control part to perform processing to secure an operation memory area to the storage part. The graph control part calculates the memory capacity required for displaying a prescribed picture and returns the memory capacity to the application processing part after the application processing part transmits a display instruction to request the display of the prescribed picture to the graph control part, the application processing part transmits an instruction to secure a memory area equivalent to the memory capacity to the storage control part, and the storage control part secures the memory area requested by the securing instruction in the storage part.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a memory management method, and more particularly to a memory that secures a memory capacity used for screen display so as not to exceed a predetermined memory capacity when displaying a screen. Regarding management method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a microcomputer is also incorporated in a medical device, and analysis, treatment, measurement, device control, etc. relating to medical care are performed based on a predetermined dedicated application program. In the case of creating such a dedicated application program, there is a case where all program modules for realizing each function of device control, input / output, display, printing, analysis, etc. are independently developed and incorporated into the device. However, nowadays, it is possible to easily use a commercially available OS such as Windows (registered trademark) having an advanced GUI function. A dedicated application program is being developed using a function module, a display function module, a print function module, and the like.

By using the existing functional modules provided in such an OS, it is possible to easily create, debug and change a dedicated application program for controlling medical devices, operating and displaying analysis results. It is because

On the other hand, some medical devices are intended for human treatment, and during the treatment using the medical devices, abnormal operations such as malfunction, malfunction, and function stop are not allowed, and once the medical device is controlled. It has the peculiarity of not incorporating a program that executes another function, although it may improve the program itself after incorporating the dedicated application program for.

[0005]

However, Windows
In order to meet the demands of all users, commercially available OSs such as s are provided with many functional modules so that many application programs can be incorporated at any time. For example, a task control program that allows a plurality of programs to be processed in parallel as a functional module and a GUI drawing control program that graphically displays a plurality of windows on one screen are provided. The user develops an application program for controlling a medical device by using these programs.

FIG. 7 shows a schematic explanatory diagram of a conventional program configuration. Generally, the program is BIOS1, OS
2, APLI3 is divided into three layers. BIOS1
Includes a hardware control program 11 for directly controlling the hardware 10. The OS 2 includes a task control program 21 for realizing multitasking, a GUI drawing control program 22 for display control, a display hardware device, etc. Device driver 23 for controlling
Is included. The APLI 3 includes, for example, an application program 31 for controlling medical equipment.

These programs are related to each other and, for example, the graphic display required by the application program 31 is displayed. In FIG. 7, generally, the device driver program 23 and the hardware control program 11 are created by the hardware providing manufacturer, the task control program 21 and the GUI drawing control program 22 are created by the OS providing manufacturer, and the application program 31 is provided by the application providing program. Created by a person who develops an application using a commercially available OS. For example, when the application program 31 is a medical device control application program, the medical device manufacturer is a user who develops the application program.

The functional module provided by the commercially available OS is
Not all have been made public and the content is confidential and some may not be modified by a third party. For example, the GUI drawing control program 22 provided by a commercially available OS may try to secure a memory area having a capacity exceeding the memory capacity assumed by the user when developing a new window.

Therefore, even if a user creates an application program using a functional module including such a secret part according to a predetermined rule and sufficiently debugs it so as to prevent malfunction, the secret part is unfortunately unsuccessful. Therefore, it is not possible to develop in anticipation of any abnormal situation. Therefore, some commercially available application software may have an unexpected abnormal state such as a memory shortage or a write-protection violation.

For example, the GUI drawing control program 22 provided by the OS tries to secure the memory capacity necessary as the display memory for displaying the window, but tries to secure how much memory capacity. The user who creates the application program cannot know exactly. In other words, even if the user creates an application program with great care,
Since the upper limit value of the secured memory capacity cannot be specified accurately, the abnormal operation due to insufficient memory could not be prevented.

In order to prevent such a memory shortage condition, it is conceivable to mount a memory having a capacity sufficiently larger than the required memory capacity. However, by installing a large amount of memory, it may be possible to avoid a situation where the memory is actually insufficient, but as the memory allocation capacity is not known exactly, it is necessary to avoid an unexpected situation at the time of development. Is impossible. In addition, it is economically unfavorable to install a large-capacity memory more than necessary because it causes a cost increase.

From the above, an abnormal operation is not allowed in an application program for controlling medical equipment in which malfunctions affect human life, and the GUI drawing control program 2
Even if the abnormal operation due to the memory shortage is practically less than about 1% during the display processing of 2, even if the abnormal operation may occur, the application program cannot be provided to the market. .

Therefore, the present invention has been made in consideration of the above-mentioned circumstances, and even in the case of a device having only the minimum necessary memory capacity calculated at the time of development, the display control is not necessary. It is an object of the present invention to provide a memory management method that prevents abnormal operation due to lack of memory.

[0014]

According to the present invention, there is provided an application processing section comprising a program for executing a predetermined function, a graph control section which is created by a user and which calculates a memory capacity required for display. A memory management method for a control device, comprising: an application processing unit; a storage unit that stores data for drawing control; and a storage control unit that performs a process of securing an operation memory area for the storage unit. After the processing unit transmits a display command requesting to display a predetermined screen to the graph control unit, the graph control unit calculates the memory capacity required to display the predetermined screen, and The capacity is returned to the application processing unit, the application processing unit sends an instruction to secure a memory area corresponding to this memory capacity to the storage control unit, and the storage control unit writes the memory area requested by the securing instruction as described above. There is provided a memory management method, characterized in that securing against parts.

According to this, since the memory capacity required for the display processing can be known at the time of design, the mounted memory capacity can be minimized, the cost can be reduced, and the memory management which does not cause the abnormal operation due to the memory shortage. A method can be provided.

Here, the display command transmitted by the application processing unit includes the screen size and the number of colors of the screen to be displayed, and the graph control unit uses the screen size and the number of colors to display the screen. The required memory capacity may be calculated. Further, the memory control unit secures a memory area with the memory capacity calculated by the graph control unit as an upper limit, and the application processing unit performs processing necessary for displaying a screen within the range of the memory capacity. You may further,
The present invention provides a medical device control apparatus including the memory management method as described above.

In the present invention, the application processing section is a functional block realized mainly by a computer, and means an application program created by a user for causing the computer to realize a predetermined function.
Further, the application processing unit means a computer system including both hardware such as CPU, ROM and RAM, and a hardware control program for operating these hardware and software including an application program created by a user. In some cases.

The graph control unit is a functional block realized mainly by a computer, and is composed of a program created by the user. The functions of the application processing unit and the graph control unit are, for example, CPU, ROM, RAM, and I / O.
It is realized by a microcomputer including an O controller, a timer, etc., which operates based on a program stored in a ROM or the like.

The storage unit may be a writable / readable semiconductor memory such as a RAM or a hard disk. However, in the present invention, since this storage unit corresponds to a so-called main storage device and stores the program itself and data for drawing control,
It is preferable to use the DRAM because high-speed reading and writing is required.

The storage control unit reads from the storage unit,
It is a part that performs processing such as writing and securing memory area,
A computer equipped with an OS is prepared as one of the functions of the OS, and is mainly realized by a program created by the OS provider. Further, in the present invention, the program that realizes the functions of the application processing unit and the graph control unit is created by the user as described above, and at the time of designing the program, the required memory capacity for displaying a predetermined screen. Can be recognized by the user himself. Here, the user means a developer of an application program and a provider of a control device or the like in which the application program is incorporated. However, if the user knows in advance the minimum memory capacity required for the display performed by the application program, the program creator of the graph control unit is not limited to such a user.

In the present invention, the user may use the input / output control program for the input device such as the keyboard, the display control program for the display device, and the like, which are commercially available.
It is also possible to install S and use the functions provided in the OS in advance, such as the input / output control function, the task management function, and the storage control function for the main memory.

Various programs for implementing the memory management method of the present invention are preferably stored in a semiconductor memory such as a RAM or a ROM.
D, CD-ROM, MO, CD-R, CD-RW, DV
It may be provided in a form stored in a portable recording medium such as D or a storage device of a server connected via a communication line such as a LAN, and read into a main memory or the like at the time of execution.

[0023]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The present invention will be described in detail below based on the embodiments shown in the drawings. The present invention is not limited to this. FIG. 1 shows a schematic explanatory diagram of the functional modules of the program structure of the present invention. In the present invention, unlike the conventional configuration shown in FIG. 7, a GUI drawing control program 32 is newly provided as APLI3. In this invention, G provided by the OS
The UI drawing control program 22 is not used. The task control program 21 and the device driver program 23 are
The program provided by the OS is used.

All drawing commands from the application program 31 are given to a GUI drawing control program 32 (hereinafter, also referred to as a graph control unit), and this GUI drawing control program 32 is used by the device driver program 23 (hereinafter, also called a drawing control unit). I say) to issue a display command. The device driver program 23 and the hardware control program 11 perform the same processing as the conventional one, and function to display on the screen of the display device, which is one of the hardware 10, for example.

In the embodiment of the present invention shown below,
The application installed in the device is an application that realizes one function, and once installed, even if the function is changed, a device that does not install other application programs with new functions is applied. It shall be the target.

For example, it is assumed that an application program (for example, an application program for controlling a medical device) for implementing a single function inherent in these devices is incorporated into a medical device such as a blood cell counter or an automatic pilot device. Other input processing programs, output processing programs, etc. that require the display of a new window will not be incorporated thereafter.
Therefore, the number and color of windows displayed at the time of design,
The memory capacity required to display each window is for the case where the program designer himself has already recognized it.

FIG. 2 shows a functional block diagram of the present invention mainly related to display and display memory management. In FIG. 2, the main memory controller 5, the input controller 6, and the drawing controller 23
Is mainly implemented by a program, but existing O
Use the program originally installed in S.

The main storage device 4, the input device 7, the display recording device 8 and the display device 9 are devices usually used in personal computers and the like, and are not particularly used only in the present invention. The application program 31 and the graph control unit 32 are the same as those shown in FIG. 1, and these are created by the program developer who is the user. Figure 2
These functional blocks shown in FIG.
Executes the processing based on the function of the so-called OS itself,
It operates by executing a program corresponding to each functional block.

The input device 7 may be a pointing device such as a keyboard, a mouse or a touch panel. The input control unit 6 supplies the signal input from the input device 7 to the graph control unit 32, the CPU, and the like. As the display device 9, a CRT, LCD, EL or the like can be used. The display storage device 8 is a so-called VRAM.
Is a memory in which display data is expanded. The drawing control unit 23 performs processing such as writing display data to the display storage device 8.

The main memory control unit 5 secures a memory area necessary for the application program 31 and the like to operate in the main memory device 4, and between the external memory device such as a hard disk and the main memory device 4. It controls the reading and writing of data.

The main storage device 4 is a memory for storing the application program itself being executed and the data required during the execution of the program. Particularly, as to the present invention, the data used by the application program 31 is stored. There are an area (application area 41) to be stored, an area 42 used by the drawing control unit 23, and the like. The application area 41 includes a graph control area 43 which is a memory area secured by the application program 31 for drawing a window used by the application program 31, and an area 44 in which the application program itself is stored. .

The capacity of the graph control area 43 is a memory capacity calculated for each window by the graph control unit 32 as described later. Also, the maximum capacity M of this area 43
max is the sum of the memory capacities of a predetermined number of windows designed in advance, and the person who designed the application program 31 has the maximum capacity Mma at the time of designing.
Let us know x.

Next, the process by which the application program 31 of the present invention secures the graph control area 43 in order to display the graphic data in the window will be described. FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of an embodiment for securing a graph control area in the memory management method of the present invention. Here, under the control of a commercially available OS, the application program 31 and the graph control unit 32 operate independently as separate tasks, but the processes a1 to a4 of the application program 31 and the graph control unit 32 are performed.
The processes b1 to b3 described in (1) and (2) are related to each other.

In this embodiment, the application program 31 secures a capacity of 3 Mbytes (= M ₁ ) for the application program 31 itself as the application area 41, and further the graphic A is set to 1
Capacity for displaying one image and two graphics B (= M
_The graph control area 43 having ₂ ) is reserved.

The memory capacity M ₁ to be secured is a fixed value set by the user at the time of designing the application program 31, and the memory capacity exceeding the memory capacity cannot be secured for the application program itself. Displaying the three graphics on the screen of the display device 9 is set by the user when designing the application program 31, and other graphics are displayed when the application program 31 is operating. The graph control area 4 secured when the above-mentioned three graphics are displayed
It is assumed that the capacity M _{2 of} 3 is the maximum memory capacity.

That is, the application program 3
1 is operating, the application program 31
Maximum memory capacity is secured in the main storage device 4 may be, and the capacitance of M ₁ + M _2, the memory capacity of the M ₁ + M ₂ is found by previously calculated for the designer when the application program design It is assumed that

Further, the memory capacity M of the graph control area 43
₂ is calculated by the GUI drawing control program (graph control unit) 32 shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 according to a predetermined calculation formula incorporated in advance. The GUI drawing control program 32 itself is also the application program 31.
Since it is created by the same designer as above, the value of the memory capacity M ₂ is a fixed value determined before actually operating the program.

If the GUI drawing control program 22 provided in the conventional OS is used, when displaying one graphic A and two graphic B, how much capacity is required before the program is operated. It was not possible to estimate the maximum capacity of the graph control area 43 because it was unclear whether or not to secure it. However, in the present invention, since the GUI drawing control program 32 created by the user is used, these graphics are displayed. You can determine the maximum capacity needed to do this.

That is, in order to prevent the memory shortage, in the conventional case, the above-mentioned memory capacity M ₂
Since the program designer could not predict the maximum value of
It was necessary to mount a considerably large capacity as the main memory to be mounted, but in the present invention, the maximum capacity required for the operation of the application program 31 is M ₁ + M ₂
Since it is known as a fixed value, it suffices to mount a main memory having a capacity that can secure at least this maximum capacity M ₁ + M ₂ .

Therefore, at the design stage before actually operating the application program, it is possible to estimate the main memory having an appropriate minimum memory capacity with respect to the memory capacity to be secured, so that the cost does not increase. It is possible to realize a device that never runs out of memory when the display is performed by the application program 31.

In the flowchart of FIG. 3, the application program 31 sends a display command to the graph controller 32 to display one graphic A, two graphic B, and the graphic on the screen of the display device (step a).
1) Wait for a reply to the command. Upon receiving the command, the graph control unit 32 calculates the memory capacity required to display one graphic A and two graphic B (step b1). The memory capacity calculated here is M ₂ . The details of this calculation will be described later. The graph control unit 32 returns this M ₂ to the application program 31 (step b2). After that, the graph control unit 32 is in a state of waiting for a notification from the application program 31.

When the application program 31 receives the reply of the memory capacity M ₂ from the graph control unit 32 (step a2), the application program 31 performs a process of securing the memory capacity M ₁ + M ₂ (step a3). This memory capacity securing process is performed via the main memory control unit 5, and in the application area 41 of the main memory 4, the capacity M _{1 of the} area 44 for storing the application program 31 itself and the graph area 43 are stored. The capacity M ₂ is secured.

Next, the application program 31
Notifies the graph control unit 32 that the memory capacity M ₂ is reserved for displaying the graphics A and B (step a4). When the graph control unit 32 receives the notification that the M ₂ has been secured (step b3), the drawing control unit 2
A command is issued to display the graphics A and B on the screen 3 (step b4).

The above is the process for allocating the memory of the graph control area 43 of the present invention. In the subsequent processes, the display control process similar to the conventional one displays the graphics A and B on the display device 9. .

Next, an embodiment of the calculation of the memory capacity performed in the above step b1 will be described. Generally, the memory capacity of graphics displayed in one window is
The size of the screen to display (number of vertical dots, number of horizontal dots),
It is determined by the number of colors displayed. For example, the size of the screen of the displayed graphic A is 640 vertical dots and 480 horizontal dots, and the number of colors is 25.
If there are 6 colors, it can be calculated that the memory capacity is required to be about 300 Kbytes.

In order to calculate the memory capacity, the application program 31 sends "screen size" and "screen size" to the graphic control unit 32 in step a1 of the flowchart of FIG. And the number of colors ". Further, the numerical values of the “screen size” and the “number of colors” may be given by the user from the input device 7 in advance, or may be incorporated in advance as a predetermined constant when the application program 31 is designed. Then, in step b1, the given "screen size" and "color number" are used to calculate the required memory capacity for each graphic by a predetermined calculation formula.

Here, as the predetermined calculation formula, for example, the following basic formula ((horizontal dot number + 7) / 8) × vertical dot number ×
An expression that considers the number of dots such as a blank area is used as the number of colors. However, the calculation formula actually used is the OS used.
And the display device hardware design specifications.

In step b1 shown in FIG. 3, the memory capacity Ma required to display one graphic A and the memory capacity Mb required to display two graphic B are shown. Are calculated separately, and M ₂ = Ma +
It is calculated as Mb. Here, the calculated memory capacity M ₂ is a fixed value, and in step a3, the memory capacity required for the application program 31 is secured based on this memory capacity M ₂ .

Next, FIGS. 4, 5 and 6 are schematic flow charts of the display process, the initialization process and the input process required in the present invention. In the display process of FIG. 4, first, the application program 31 transmits a window drawing command to the graph control unit 32 (step C).
1). A series of processes of this window drawing command is the flow of FIG. 3 described above.

In the step C2, the "graph control unit 3
The process in which "2 notifies the drawing control unit 23 of the display command" is the same as step b4 in FIG. After that, the drawing control unit 23 transmits an operation memory request to the main memory control unit 5 (step C3). Next, the main memory control unit 5 secures a necessary storage area for the main storage device 4, and notifies the drawing control unit 23 of the secured allocation area (step C
4). Upon receiving this notification, the drawing control unit 23 transmits a drawing control command to the display storage device 8 (step C5).
Then, the display storage device 8 stores the data of the content to be displayed, and the display device 9 displays the data based on this data (step C6).

When the GUI drawing control program 22 installed in the conventional OS is used as shown in FIG. 7, in order to secure the memory area determined by the GUI drawing control program 22 itself, step C1 Immediately after that, the GUI drawing control program 22 transmitted the operation memory request to the main memory control unit 5, but this process is not performed in the present invention. That is, the GUI drawing control program 22 does not participate in the display process.

Next, the initialization process of FIG. 5 will be described. The initialization process is a process executed by a program included in the OS in advance, and only the process related to the application program 31 is shown here.

First, the application program 31 is activated (step d1). Next, the application program 31 transmits a memory reservation request for the application area 41 to the main memory control unit 5 in order to reserve an operation memory necessary for processing the application (step d2).

When the main memory control unit 5 receives this memory allocation request, it reserves the application area 41 in the main memory 4 and notifies the application program 31 of the allocation result (step d3) for initialization. The process ends. Here, the allocation result includes, for example, the start address of the secured storage area, the storage capacity, and the like.

Next, the input processing of FIG. 6 will be described.
First, it is assumed that the user inputs input information using the keyboard or the like in the input device 7 (step e1). By this input, the input device 7 notifies the input control unit 6 of the input value corresponding to the input information (step e).
2). Next, the input control unit 6 notifies the graph control unit 32 of this input value (step e3). Graph control unit 3
2 notifies the application program 31 of this input value (step e4).

In such an input device, for example,
If the screen size of the graphic A displayed by the application program is input in step e1, the input value corresponding to this screen size will be notified to the application program 31 according to the above flow. Here, the input value includes, for example, the screen size (the number of vertical dots, the number of horizontal dots) and the like.

The present invention provides the memory management method as described above. However, this memory management method does not add any other application program for executing a new function. It is preferably incorporated in a device that does not allow abnormal operation due to lack of memory during operation, and can be used, for example, in a medical device control device, an autopilot device, or the like.

[0058]

According to the present invention, the memory capacity to be secured by the application program at the time of display can be found by calculation at the time of designing, so that a storage unit having a necessary minimum memory capacity can be mounted and an unnecessary large capacity can be achieved. It is possible to provide a memory management method that prevents an increase in cost due to mounting a memory and prevents an abnormal operation due to a memory capacity shortage due to display processing.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic explanatory diagram of a program configuration of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram relating to display in the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of an embodiment of a graph control area securing process according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an embodiment of a display process of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of an embodiment of the initialization process of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of an embodiment of input processing of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a schematic explanatory diagram of a conventional program configuration.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 BIOS 2 OS 3 APLI 4 Main Storage Device 5 Main Storage Control Unit 6 Input Control Unit 7 Input Device 8 Display Storage Device 9 Display Device 10 Hardware 11 Hardware Control Program 21 Task Control Program 22 GUI Drawing Control Program 23 Device Driver Program 31 Application program 32 GUI drawing control program (graph control unit) 41 Application area 42 Drawing control area 43 Graph control area M ₂ 44 Application program area M ₁

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. An application processing unit including a program for executing a predetermined function, a graph control unit for calculating a memory capacity required for display, and an application processing unit and data for drawing control are stored. What is claimed is: 1. A memory management method for a control device, comprising: a storage unit; and a storage control unit that performs a process of securing an operation memory area for the storage unit, wherein the application processing unit requests a predetermined screen to be displayed. After sending the display command to the graph control unit, the graph control unit calculates the memory capacity required to display the predetermined screen, and returns this memory capacity to the application processing unit, and the application processing unit A memory management device characterized in that a command for allocating a memory area corresponding to this memory capacity is transmitted to the memory control unit, and the memory control unit allocates the memory region requested by the memory reservation command to the memory unit. Reasoning method. 2. The display command transmitted by the application processing unit comprises:
The screen size and the number of colors of the screen to be displayed are included, and the graph control unit uses the screen size and the number of colors to calculate the memory capacity necessary for the screen to be displayed. Memory management method. 3. The memory control unit secures a memory area with the memory capacity calculated by the graph control unit as an upper limit, and the application processing unit performs processing necessary for displaying a screen within the range of the memory capacity. 3. The memory management method according to claim 2, further comprising: 4. A medical device control apparatus comprising the memory management method according to any one of claims 1 to 3. 5. An application processing unit comprising a program for executing a predetermined function, a graph control unit for calculating a memory capacity required for display, and an application processing unit and data for drawing control are stored. A program for realizing a memory management function of a control device including a storage unit and a storage control unit that performs a process of securing an operation memory area for the storage unit, wherein the application processing unit has a predetermined screen. After sending a display command requesting to display, to the graph control unit, the graph control unit calculates the memory capacity required to display the predetermined screen and returns this memory capacity to the application processing unit. The application processing unit transmits an instruction to secure a memory area corresponding to the memory capacity to the storage control unit, and the storage control unit secures the memory area requested by the securing instruction to the storage unit. A program that causes a computer to realize the functions described below.