How to dynamically expand a Memory Mapped File

Question

I\'ve used C# to solve the following requirement.. - create an app the can receive a lot of data fast - you must be able to analyse the received data while more are incoming

Answer 1

Once you map a file in memory, you cannot increase its size. This is a known limitation of memory mapped files.

...you must calculate or estimate the size of the finished file because file mapping objects are static in size; once created, their size cannot be increased or decreased.

One strategy would be to use chunks stored in non-persisted memory mapped files of a given size, say 1GB or 2GB. You would manage these through a top level ViewAccessor of your own design (probably doing basic passthru of the methods you need from the MemoryMappedViewAccessor).

Edit: or you could just create a non-persisted memory mapped file of a maximal size you expect to use (say 8GB to start, with a parameter to tune it on start-up of your application) and retrieve MemoryMappedViewAccessor's per logical chunk. The non-persisted file will not use physical resources until each view is requested.