Will atomic operations block other threads?

Question

I am trying to make \"atomic vs non atomic\" concept settled in my mind. My first problem is I could not find \"real-life analogy\" on that. Like customer/restaurant relationshi

Answer 1

Let's clarify a bit what is atomic and what are blocks. Atomicity means that operation either executes fully and all it's side effects are visible, or it does not execute at all. So all other threads can either see state before the operation or after it. Block of code guarded by a mutex is atomic too, we just don't call it an operation. Atomic operations are special CPU instructions which conceptually are similar to usual operation guarded by a mutex (you know what mutex is, so I'll use it, despite the fact that it is implemented using atomic operations). CPU has a limited set of operations which it can execute atomically, but due to hardware support they are very fast.

When we discuss thread blocks we usually involve mutexes in conversation because code guarded by them can take quite a time to execute. So we say that thread waits on a mutex. For atomic operations situation is the same, but they are fast and we usually don't care for delays here, so it is not that likely to hear words "block" and "atomic operation" together.

That means thread will wait until atomic operation is done?

Yes it will wait. CPU will restrict access to a block of memory where the variable is located and other CPU cores will wait. Note that for performance reasons that blocks are held only between atomic operations themselves. CPU cores are allowed to cache variables for read.

How that thread know about that operation is atomic?

Special CPU instructions are used. It is just written in your program that particular operation should be performed in atomic manner.

Additional information:

There are more tricky parts with atomic operations. For example on modern CPUs usually all reads and writes of primitive types are atomic. But CPU and compiler are allowed to reorder them. So it is possible that you change some struct, set a flag that telling that it is changed, but CPU reorders writes and sets flag before the struct is actually committed to memory. When you use atomic operations usually some additional efforts are done to prevent undesired reordering. If you want to know more, you should read about memory barriers.

Simple atomic stores and writes are not that useful. To make maximal use of atomic operations you need something more complex. Most common is a CAS - compare and swap. You compare variable with a value and change it only if comparison was successful.