Patent ID: 6665708
Filing Date: 2003-12-16
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A method of operating a computer system comprising the steps of:defining a first job having a set of shared individually addressable data items stored in a corresponding set of locations within a memory; defining a second job having the set of shared individually addressable data items stored in the corresponding set of locations within the memory; partitioning the set of locations into a set of data areas, wherein at least one of the data areas stores more than one of the data items; creating a set of marker fields, each uniquely associated with a corresponding one of the data areas; for each of the data areas, setting a first subfield in the associated marker field in response to the first lob accessing any of the data stored within the data area; for each of the data areas, setting a second subfield in the associated marker field in response to the second job accessing any of the data stored within the data area; running the first job and the second job; and determining whether a collision has occurred between the first job and the second job by determining whether the first job accessed a same data area that was accessed by the second job, said determining step including determining whether there exists a marker field having both the first subfield and the second subfield set, wherein, it is determined that a collision has occurred without determining whether a particular data item within the same data area was accessed by both the first job and the second job.