Lock-free queue

Question

Also I am doing a c implementation and currently have the structure of the queue:

typedef struct queueelem {
    queuedata_t data;
    struct queueelem *next;
} queueelem_t;

typedef struct queue {
    int capacity;
    int size;
    queueelem_t *head;
    queueelem_t *tail;
} queue_t;

queue_t *
queue_init(int capacity)
{
    queue_t *q = (queue_t *) malloc(sizeof(queue_t));
    q->head = q->tail = NULL;
    q->size = 0;
    q->capacity = capacity;
    return q;
}

int CompareAndExchange (void **a, void *comparand,void *new) {
    int success = 0;
    pthread_mutex_lock(&CE_MUTEX);
    if ((*a) != comparand) {
       (*a) = new;
       //return     TRUE
       success = 1;
    }
    pthread_mutex_unlock(&CE_MUTEX);     
   //return     FALSE
    return success;
 }

But not sure How to continue, with queue and dequeue functions...

• How would the code look like?

Answer 1

Your pseudo-code can (and most likely does) suffer from the ABA problem, as only the pointer is checked, and not an accompanying unique stamp, you'll find this paper of use in that regard and as a general guide to lock-free queue implementation, with its pitfalls.

When dealing with lock free programing, its also a good idea to read up on Herb Sutter's works, as He gives good, insightful explanations to whats required, why its required and its potential weak points (though beware that some of his older publications/articles where found to contain some hidden/unforseen problems).

Answer 2

and also the recent boost'con talk about this subject : https://github.com/boostcon/2011_presentations/raw/master/wed/lockfree_2011_slides.pdf

Answer 3

(Leaving this here for now, but see edit.)

Do you know a implementation of lock free queue in C?

I wrote lockless queue recently (http://www.ideone.com/l2QRp). I can't actually guarantee it works correctly, but I can't find any bugs and I've used it in a couple of single threaded programs without any problems, so there's nothing too obvious wrong with it.

Trivial usage example:

queue_t queue;
int val = 42;
queue_init(&queue,sizeof val);
queue_put(&queue,&val);
val = 0; 
queue_pop(&queue,&val);
printf("%i\n",val); // 42
queue_destroy(&queue);

Edit:

As @Alexey Kukanov pointed out, queue_pop can fail if tmp is popped,freed,allocated again, and put again between checking for null and swapping:

    if(!tmp->next) return errno = ENODATA;
    /* can fail here */
    } while(!sync_swap(q->head,tmp,tmp->next));

I'm not yet sure how to fix this, but I'll (hopefully) update this once I figure it out. For now, disregard this.

Answer 4

You may try this library it is built in c native. lfqueue

For Example

int* int_data;
lfqueue_t my_queue;

if (lfqueue_init(&my_queue) == -1)
    return -1;

/** Wrap This scope in other threads **/
int_data = (int*) malloc(sizeof(int));
assert(int_data != NULL);
*int_data = i++;
/*Enqueue*/
 while (lfqueue_enq(&my_queue, int_data) == -1) {
    printf("ENQ Full ?\n");
}

/** Wrap This scope in other threads **/
/*Dequeue*/
while  ( (int_data = lfqueue_deq(&my_queue)) == NULL) {
    printf("DEQ EMPTY ..\n");
}

// printf("%d\n", *(int*) int_data );
free(int_data);
/** End **/

lfqueue_destroy(&my_queue);