Memory-mapped file
Imagine you have a big bag of candies, but you have small hands and cannot hold them all at once. You need to pick a candy, put it in your mouth, and then pick another one. This is like how a computer stores data - it stores data in small pieces in its memory.
But what if you have a friend who has bigger hands and can hold all the candies at once? You can take candies from their hand instead. This is like a memory-mapped file.
A memory-mapped file is like an imaginary hand that can hold all the data at once. Instead of loading data from a file into memory and then processing it, you can map the file into memory and work directly with the file's contents as if they were already in memory.
This means you can access the data in the file without having to read the whole file into memory first, which can be very helpful when working with large files or when you don't have enough memory available to hold the whole file.
Just like taking candies from your friend's hand, when you access data from a memory-mapped file, the computer goes and fetches the data as needed, but it doesn't have to load the whole file into memory at once.
In summary, a memory-mapped file is like a virtual hand that can hold all the data in a file, making it easier to work with large files and to access data without having to read the whole file into memory first.
But what if you have a friend who has bigger hands and can hold all the candies at once? You can take candies from their hand instead. This is like a memory-mapped file.
A memory-mapped file is like an imaginary hand that can hold all the data at once. Instead of loading data from a file into memory and then processing it, you can map the file into memory and work directly with the file's contents as if they were already in memory.
This means you can access the data in the file without having to read the whole file into memory first, which can be very helpful when working with large files or when you don't have enough memory available to hold the whole file.
Just like taking candies from your friend's hand, when you access data from a memory-mapped file, the computer goes and fetches the data as needed, but it doesn't have to load the whole file into memory at once.
In summary, a memory-mapped file is like a virtual hand that can hold all the data in a file, making it easier to work with large files and to access data without having to read the whole file into memory first.