extern __shared__

Accelerated Computing CUDA CUDA Programming and Performance
1

Hello. What does the keyword extern here means

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extern shared float s_shared;

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Thanks

2

It means the same thing that it means in standard C - the variable s_shared is defined external to the current compilation unit.

3

Ok, thanks.

4

Within the context of a CUDA kernel, extern shared means that the size of this array is dynamically defined by the third argument in a kernel call in the Runtime (“C for CUDA”) API. i.e. <<grid_dim, block_dim, shared_mem_size>>

Use this when the shared memory size your kernel needs is not yet known during compile time (e.g. dependent on some input data or problem size)

Christian

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