Changeset 8a930c03 for doc/theses/colby_parsons_MMAth/text/channels.tex
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- Jun 12, 2023, 12:05:58 PM (3 years ago)
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doc/theses/colby_parsons_MMAth/text/channels.tex
r2b78949 r8a930c03 17 17 Additionally all channel operations in CSP are synchronous (no buffering). 18 18 Advanced channels as a programming language feature has been popularized in recent years by the language Go~\cite{Go}, which encourages the use of channels as its fundamental concurrent feature. 19 It was the popularity of Go channels that lead to their implement ion in \CFA.19 It was the popularity of Go channels that lead to their implementation in \CFA. 20 20 Neither Go nor \CFA channels have the restrictions of the early channel-based concurrent systems. 21 22 Other popular languages and libraries that provide channels include C++ Boost~\cite{boost:channel}, Rust~\cite{rust:channel}, Haskell~\cite{haskell:channel}, and OCaml~\cite{ocaml:channel}. 23 Boost channels only support asynchronous (non-blocking) operations, and Rust channels are limited to only having one consumer per channel. 24 Haskell channels are unbounded in size, and OCaml channels are zero-size. 25 These restrictions in Haskell and OCaml are likely due to their functional approach, which results in them both using a list as the underlying data structure for their channel. 26 These languages and libraries are not discussed further, as their channel implementation is not comparable to the bounded-buffer style channels present in Go and \CFA. 21 27 22 28 \section{Producer-Consumer Problem} … … 61 67 \section{Channel Implementation} 62 68 Currently, only the Go programming language provides user-level threading where the primary communication mechanism is channels. 63 Experiments were conducted that varied the producer-consumer problemalgorithm and lock type used inside the channel.69 Experiments were conducted that varied the producer-consumer algorithm and lock type used inside the channel. 64 70 With the exception of non-\gls{fcfs} or non-FIFO algorithms, no algorithm or lock usage in the channel implementation was found to be consistently more performant that Go's choice of algorithm and lock implementation. 65 71 Performance of channels can be improved by sharding the underlying buffer \cite{Dice11}. 66 In doing so the FIFO property is lost, which is undesireable for user-facing channels.72 However, the FIFO property is lost, which is undesirable for user-facing channels. 67 73 Therefore, the low-level channel implementation in \CFA is largely copied from the Go implementation, but adapted to the \CFA type and runtime systems. 68 74 As such the research contributions added by \CFA's channel implementation lie in the realm of safety and productivity features. 69 75 70 The Go channel implementation utilitizes cooperation between threads to achieve good performance~\cite{go:chan}. 71 The cooperation between threads only occurs when producers or consumers need to block due to the buffer being full or empty. 72 In these cases the blocking thread stores their relevant data in a shared location and the signalling thread will complete their operation before waking them. 73 This helps improve performance in a few ways. 74 First, each thread interacting with the channel with only acquire and release the internal channel lock exactly once. 75 This decreases contention on the internal lock, as only entering threads will compete for the lock since signalled threads never reacquire the lock. 76 The other advantage of the cooperation approach is that it eliminates the potential bottleneck of waiting for signalled threads. 77 The property of acquiring/releasing the lock only once can be achieved without cooperation by \Newterm{baton passing} the lock. 78 Baton passing is when one thread acquires a lock but does not release it, and instead signals a thread inside the critical section conceptually "passing" the mutual exclusion to the signalled thread. 79 While baton passing is useful in some algorithms, it results in worse performance than the cooperation approach in channel implementations since all entering threads then need to wait for the blocked thread to reach the front of the ready queue and run before other operations on the channel can proceed. 76 The Go channel implementation utilizes cooperation among threads to achieve good performance~\cite{go:chan}. 77 This cooperation only occurs when producers or consumers need to block due to the buffer being full or empty. 78 In these cases, a blocking thread stores their relevant data in a shared location and the signalling thread completes the blocking thread's operation before waking them; 79 \ie the blocking thread has no work to perform after it unblocks because the signalling threads has done this work. 80 This approach is similar to wait morphing for locks~\cite[p.~82]{Butenhof97} and improves performance in a few ways. 81 First, each thread interacting with the channel only acquires and releases the internal channel lock once. 82 As a result, contention on the internal lock is decreased, as only entering threads compete for the lock as unblocking threads do not reacquire the lock. 83 The other advantage of Go's wait-morphing approach is that it eliminates the bottleneck of waiting for signalled threads to run. 84 Note, the property of acquiring/releasing the lock only once can also be achieved with a different form of cooperation, called \Newterm{baton passing}. 85 Baton passing occurs when one thread acquires a lock but does not release it, and instead signals a thread inside the critical section, conceptually ``passing'' the mutual exclusion from the signalling thread to the signalled thread. 86 The baton-passing approach has threads cooperate to pass mutual exclusion without additional lock acquires or releases; 87 the wait-morphing approach has threads cooperate by completing the signalled thread's operation, thus removing a signalled thread's need for mutual exclusion after unblocking. 88 While baton passing is useful in some algorithms, it results in worse channel performance than the Go approach. 89 In the baton-passing approach, all threads need to wait for the signalled thread to reach the front of the ready queue, context switch, and run before other operations on the channel can proceed, since the signalled thread holds mutual exclusion; 90 in the wait-morphing approach, since the operation is completed before the signal, other threads can continue to operate on the channel without waiting for the signalled thread to run. 80 91 81 92 In this work, all channel sizes \see{Sections~\ref{s:ChannelSize}} are implemented with bounded buffers. … … 100 111 \subsection{Toggle-able Statistics} 101 112 As discussed, a channel is a concurrent layer over a bounded buffer. 102 To achieve efficient buffering users should aim for as few blocking operations on a channel as possible.103 Often to achieve this users maychange the buffer size, shard a channel into multiple channels, or tweak the number of producer and consumer threads.104 Fo users to be able to make informed decisions when tuning channel usage, toggle-able channel statistics are provided.105 The statistics are toggled at compile time via the @CHAN_STATS@ macro to ensure that they are entirely elided when not used.106 When statistics are turned on, four counters are maintained per channel, two for producers and two for consumers.113 To achieve efficient buffering, users should aim for as few blocking operations on a channel as possible. 114 Mechanisms to reduce blocking are: change the buffer size, shard a channel into multiple channels, or tweak the number of producer and consumer threads. 115 For users to be able to make informed decisions when tuning channel usage, toggle-able channel statistics are provided. 116 The statistics are toggled on during the \CFA build by defining the @CHAN_STATS@ macro, which guarantees zero cost when not using this feature. 117 When statistics are turned on, four counters are maintained per channel, two for inserting (producers) and two for removing (consumers). 107 118 The two counters per type of operation track the number of blocking operations and total operations. 108 In the channel destructor the counters are printed out aggregated and also per type of operation. 109 An example use case of the counters follows. 110 A user is buffering information between producer and consumer threads and wants to analyze channel performance. 111 Via the statistics they see that producers block for a large percentage of their operations while consumers do not block often. 112 They then can use this information to adjust their number of producers/consumers or channel size to achieve a larger percentage of non-blocking producer operations, thus increasing their channel throughput. 119 In the channel destructor, the counters are printed out aggregated and also per type of operation. 120 An example use case is noting that producer inserts are blocking often while consumer removes do not block often. 121 This information can be used to increase the number of consumers to decrease the blocking producer operations, thus increasing the channel throughput. 122 Whereas, increasing the channel size in this scenario is unlikely to produce a benefit because the consumers can never keep up with the producers. 113 123 114 124 \subsection{Deadlock Detection} 115 The deadlock detection in the \CFA channels is fairly basic. 116 It only detects the case where threads are blocked on the channel during deallocation. 117 This case is guaranteed to deadlock since the list holding the blocked thread is internal to the channel and will be deallocated. 118 If a user maintained a separate reference to a thread and unparked it outside the channel they could avoid the deadlock, but would run into other runtime errors since the thread would access channel data after waking that is now deallocated. 119 More robust deadlock detection surrounding channel usage would have to be implemented separate from the channel implementation since it would require knowledge about the threading system and other channel/thread state. 125 The deadlock detection in the \CFA channels is fairly basic but detects a very common channel mistake during termination. 126 That is, it detects the case where threads are blocked on the channel during channel deallocation. 127 This case is guaranteed to deadlock since there are no other threads to supply or consume values needed by the waiting threads. 128 Only if a user maintained a separate reference to the blocked threads and manually unblocks them outside the channel could the deadlock be avoid. 129 However, without special semantics, this unblocking would generate other runtime errors where the unblocked thread attempts to access non-existing channel data or even a deallocated channel. 130 More robust deadlock detection needs to be implemented separate from channels since it requires knowledge about the threading system and other channel/thread state. 120 131 121 132 \subsection{Program Shutdown} 122 133 Terminating concurrent programs is often one of the most difficult parts of writing concurrent code, particularly if graceful termination is needed. 123 The difficulty of graceful termination often arises from the usage ofsynchronization primitives that need to be handled carefully during shutdown.134 Graceful termination can be difficult to achieve with synchronization primitives that need to be handled carefully during shutdown. 124 135 It is easy to deadlock during termination if threads are left behind on synchronization primitives. 125 136 Additionally, most synchronization primitives are prone to \gls{toctou} issues where there is race between one thread checking the state of a concurrent object and another thread changing the state. 126 137 \gls{toctou} issues with synchronization primitives often involve a race between one thread checking the primitive for blocked threads and another thread blocking on it. 127 138 Channels are a particularly hard synchronization primitive to terminate since both sending and receiving to/from a channel can block. 128 Thus, improperly handled \gls{toctou} issues with channels often result in deadlocks as threads trying to perform the termination may end up unexpectedly blocking in their attempt to help other threads exit the system. 129 130 \paragraph{Go channels} provide a set of tools to help with concurrent shutdown~\cite{go:chan}. 131 Channels in Go have a @close@ operation and a \Go{select} statement that both can be used to help threads terminate. 139 Thus, improperly handled \gls{toctou} issues with channels often result in deadlocks as threads performing the termination may end up unexpectedly blocking in their attempt to help other threads exit the system. 140 141 \paragraph{Go channels} provide a set of tools to help with concurrent shutdown~\cite{go:chan} using a @close@ operation in conjunction with the \Go{select} statement. 132 142 The \Go{select} statement is discussed in \ref{s:waituntil}, where \CFA's @waituntil@ statement is compared with the Go \Go{select} statement. 133 143 … … 143 153 Note, panics in Go can be caught, but it is not the idiomatic way to write Go programs. 144 154 145 While Go's channel closing semantics are powerful enough to perform any concurrent termination needed by a program, their lack of ease of use leaves much to be desired.155 While Go's channel-closing semantics are powerful enough to perform any concurrent termination needed by a program, their lack of ease of use leaves much to be desired. 146 156 Since both closing and sending panic once a channel is closed, a user often has to synchronize the senders (producers) before the channel can be closed to avoid panics. 147 157 However, in doing so it renders the @close@ operation nearly useless, as the only utilities it provides are the ability to ensure receivers no longer block on the channel and receive zero-valued elements. 148 158 This functionality is only useful if the zero-typed element is recognized as a sentinel value, but if another sentinel value is necessary, then @close@ only provides the non-blocking feature. 149 159 To avoid \gls{toctou} issues during shutdown, a busy wait with a \Go{select} statement is often used to add or remove elements from a channel. 150 Due to Go's asymmetric approach to channel shutdown, separate synchronization between producers and consumers of a channel has to occur during shutdown.160 Hence, due to Go's asymmetric approach to channel shutdown, separate synchronization between producers and consumers of a channel has to occur during shutdown. 151 161 152 162 \paragraph{\CFA channels} have access to an extensive exception handling mechanism~\cite{Beach21}. … … 161 171 When a channel in \CFA is closed, all subsequent calls to the channel raise a resumption exception at the caller. 162 172 If the resumption is handled, the caller attempts to complete the channel operation. 163 However, if channel operation would block, a termination exception is thrown.173 However, if the channel operation would block, a termination exception is thrown. 164 174 If the resumption is not handled, the exception is rethrown as a termination. 165 175 These termination exceptions allow for non-local transfer that is used to great effect to eagerly and gracefully shut down a thread. 166 176 When a channel is closed, if there are any blocked producers or consumers inside the channel, they are woken up and also have a resumption thrown at them. 167 The resumption exception, @channel_closed@, has a couple fields to aid in handling the exception. 168 The exception contains a pointer to the channel it was thrown from, and a pointer to an element. 169 In exceptions thrown from remove the element pointer will be null. 170 In the case of insert the element pointer points to the element that the thread attempted to insert. 177 The resumption exception, @channel_closed@, has internal fields to aid in handling the exception. 178 The exception contains a pointer to the channel it is thrown from and a pointer to a buffer element. 179 For exceptions thrown from @remove@, the buffer element pointer is null. 180 For exceptions thrown from @insert@, the element pointer points to the buffer element that the thread attempted to insert. 181 Utility routines @bool is_insert( channel_closed & e );@ and @bool is_remove( channel_closed & e );@ are provided for convenient checking of the element pointer. 171 182 This element pointer allows the handler to know which operation failed and also allows the element to not be lost on a failed insert since it can be moved elsewhere in the handler. 172 Furthermore, due to \CFA's powerful exception system, this data can be used to choose handlers based which channel and operation failed. 173 Exception handlers in \CFA have an optional predicate after the exception type which can be used to optionally trigger or skip handlers based on the content of an exception. 174 It is worth mentioning that the approach of exceptions for termination may incur a larger performance cost during termination that the approach used in Go. 175 This should not be an issue, since termination is rarely an fast-path of an application and ensuring that termination can be implemented correctly with ease is the aim of the exception approach. 183 Furthermore, due to \CFA's powerful exception system, this data can be used to choose handlers based on which channel and operation failed. 184 For example, exception handlers in \CFA have an optional predicate which can be used to trigger or skip handlers based on the content of the matching exception. 185 It is worth mentioning that using exceptions for termination may incur a larger performance cost than the Go approach. 186 However, this should not be an issue, since termination is rarely on the fast-path of an application. 187 In contrast, ensuring termination can be easily implemented correctly is the aim of the exception approach. 176 188 177 189 \section{\CFA / Go channel Examples} 178 To highlight the differences between \CFA's and Go's close semantics, three examples will be presented.190 To highlight the differences between \CFA's and Go's close semantics, three examples are presented. 179 191 The first example is a simple shutdown case, where there are producer threads and consumer threads operating on a channel for a fixed duration. 180 Once the duration ends, producers and consumers terminate without worrying about any leftover values in the channel.181 The second example extends the first example by requiring the channel to be empty uponshutdown.192 Once the duration ends, producers and consumers terminate immediately leaving unprocessed elements in the channel. 193 The second example extends the first by requiring the channel to be empty after shutdown. 182 194 Both the first and second example are shown in Figure~\ref{f:ChannelTermination}. 183 184 185 First the Go solutions to these examples shown in Figure~\ref{l:go_chan_term} are discussed.186 Since some of the elements being passed through the channel are zero-valued, closing the channel in Go does not aid in communicating shutdown.187 Instead, a different mechanism to communicate with the consumers and producers needs to be used.188 This use of an additional flag or communication method is common in Go channel shutdown code, since to avoid panics on a channel, the shutdown of a channel often has to be communicated with threads before it occurs.189 In this example, a flag is used to communicate with producers and another flag is used for consumers.190 Producers and consumers need separate avenues of communication both so that producers terminate before the channel is closed to avoid panicking, and to avoid the case where all the consumers terminate first, which can result in a deadlock for producers if the channel is full.191 The producer flag is set first, then after producers terminate the consumer flag is set and the channel is closed.192 In the second example where all values need to be consumed, the main thread iterates over the closed channel to process any remaining values.193 194 195 In the \CFA solutions in Figure~\ref{l:cfa_chan_term}, shutdown is communicated directly to both producers and consumers via the @close@ call.196 In the first example where all values do not need to be consumed, both producers and consumers do not handle the resumption and finish once they receive the termination exception.197 The second \CFA example where all values must be consumed highlights how resumption is used with channel shutdown.198 The @Producer@ thread-main knows to stop producing when the @insert@ call on a closed channel raises exception @channel_closed@.199 The @Consumer@ thread-main knows to stop consuming after all elements of a closed channel are removed and the call to @remove@ would block.200 Hence, the consumer knows the moment the channel closes because a resumption exception is raised, caught, and ignored, and then control returns to @remove@ to return another item from the buffer.201 Only when the buffer is drained and the call to @remove@ would block, a termination exception is raised to stop consuming.202 The \CFA semantics allow users to communicate channel shutdown directly through the channel, without having to share extra state between threads.203 Additionally, when the channel needs to be drained, \CFA provides users with easy options for processing the leftover channel values in the main thread or in the consumer threads.204 If one wishes to consume the leftover values in the consumer threads in Go, extra synchronization between the main thread and the consumer threads is needed.205 195 206 196 \begin{figure} … … 208 198 209 199 \begin{lrbox}{\myboxA} 200 \begin{Golang}[aboveskip=0pt,belowskip=0pt] 201 var channel chan int = make( chan int, 128 ) 202 var prodJoin chan int = make( chan int, 4 ) 203 var consJoin chan int = make( chan int, 4 ) 204 var cons_done, prod_done bool = false, false; 205 func producer() { 206 for { 207 if prod_done { break } 208 channel <- 5 209 } 210 prodJoin <- 0 // synch with main thd 211 } 212 213 func consumer() { 214 for { 215 if cons_done { break } 216 <- channel 217 } 218 consJoin <- 0 // synch with main thd 219 } 220 221 222 func main() { 223 for j := 0; j < 4; j++ { go consumer() } 224 for j := 0; j < 4; j++ { go producer() } 225 time.Sleep( time.Second * 10 ) 226 prod_done = true 227 for j := 0; j < 4 ; j++ { <- prodJoin } 228 cons_done = true 229 close(channel) // ensure no cons deadlock 230 @for elem := range channel {@ 231 // process leftover values 232 @}@ 233 for j := 0; j < 4; j++ { <- consJoin } 234 } 235 \end{Golang} 236 \end{lrbox} 237 238 \begin{lrbox}{\myboxB} 210 239 \begin{cfa}[aboveskip=0pt,belowskip=0pt] 211 channel( size_t ) Channel{ ChannelSize }; 212 240 channel( size_t ) chan{ 128 }; 213 241 thread Consumer {}; 242 thread Producer {}; 243 244 void main( Producer & this ) { 245 try { 246 for () 247 insert( chan, 5 ); 248 } catch( channel_closed * ) { 249 // unhandled resume or full 250 } 251 } 214 252 void main( Consumer & this ) { 215 try { 216 for ( ;; ) 217 remove( Channel ); 218 @} catchResume( channel_closed * ) { @ 219 // handled resume => consume from chan 220 } catch( channel_closed * ) { 221 // empty or unhandled resume 222 } 223 } 224 225 thread Producer {}; 226 void main( Producer & this ) { 227 size_t count = 0; 228 try { 229 for ( ;; ) 230 insert( Channel, count++ ); 231 } catch ( channel_closed * ) { 232 // unhandled resume or full 233 } 234 } 235 236 int main( int argc, char * argv[] ) { 237 Consumer c[Consumers]; 238 Producer p[Producers]; 239 sleep(Duration`s); 240 close( Channel ); 241 return 0; 242 } 253 try { 254 for () { int i = remove( chan ); } 255 @} catchResume( channel_closed * ) {@ 256 // handled resume => consume from chan 257 } catch( channel_closed * ) { 258 // empty or unhandled resume 259 } 260 } 261 int main() { 262 Consumer c[4]; 263 Producer p[4]; 264 sleep( 10`s ); 265 close( chan ); 266 } 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 243 274 \end{cfa} 244 275 \end{lrbox} 245 276 246 \begin{lrbox}{\myboxB} 247 \begin{cfa}[aboveskip=0pt,belowskip=0pt] 248 var cons_done, prod_done bool = false, false; 249 var prodJoin chan int = make(chan int, Producers) 250 var consJoin chan int = make(chan int, Consumers) 251 252 func consumer( channel chan uint64 ) { 253 for { 254 if cons_done { break } 255 <-channel 256 } 257 consJoin <- 0 // synch with main thd 258 } 259 260 func producer( channel chan uint64 ) { 261 var count uint64 = 0 262 for { 263 if prod_done { break } 264 channel <- count++ 265 } 266 prodJoin <- 0 // synch with main thd 267 } 268 269 func main() { 270 channel = make(chan uint64, ChannelSize) 271 for j := 0; j < Consumers; j++ { 272 go consumer( channel ) 273 } 274 for j := 0; j < Producers; j++ { 275 go producer( channel ) 276 } 277 time.Sleep(time.Second * Duration) 278 prod_done = true 279 for j := 0; j < Producers ; j++ { 280 <-prodJoin // wait for prods 281 } 282 cons_done = true 283 close(channel) // ensure no cons deadlock 284 @for elem := range channel { @ 285 // process leftover values 286 @}@ 287 for j := 0; j < Consumers; j++{ 288 <-consJoin // wait for cons 289 } 290 } 291 \end{cfa} 292 \end{lrbox} 293 294 \subfloat[\CFA style]{\label{l:cfa_chan_term}\usebox\myboxA} 277 \subfloat[Go style]{\label{l:go_chan_term}\usebox\myboxA} 295 278 \hspace*{3pt} 296 279 \vrule 297 280 \hspace*{3pt} 298 \subfloat[ Go style]{\label{l:go_chan_term}\usebox\myboxB}281 \subfloat[\CFA style]{\label{l:cfa_chan_term}\usebox\myboxB} 299 282 \caption{Channel Termination Examples 1 and 2. Code specific to example 2 is highlighted.} 300 283 \label{f:ChannelTermination} 301 284 \end{figure} 302 285 303 The final shutdown example uses channels to implement a barrier. 304 It is shown in Figure~\ref{f:ChannelBarrierTermination}. 305 The problem of implementing a barrier is chosen since threads are both producers and consumers on the barrier-internal channels, which removes the ability to easily synchronize producers before consumers during shutdown. 306 As such, while the shutdown details will be discussed with this problem in mind, they are also applicable to other problems taht have individual threads both producing and consuming from channels. 307 Both of these examples are implemented using \CFA syntax so that they can be easily compared. 308 Figure~\ref{l:cfa_chan_bar} uses \CFA-style channel close semantics and Figure~\ref{l:go_chan_bar} uses Go-style close semantics. 309 In this example it is infeasible to use the Go @close@ call since all threads are both potentially producers and consumers, causing panics on close to be unavoidable without complex synchronization. 310 As such in Figure~\ref{l:go_chan_bar} to implement a flush routine for the buffer, a sentinel value of @-1@ has to be used to indicate to threads that they need to leave the barrier. 311 This sentinel value has to be checked at two points. 286 Figure~\ref{l:go_chan_term} shows the Go solution. 287 Since some of the elements being passed through the channel are zero-valued, closing the channel in Go does not aid in communicating shutdown. 288 Instead, a different mechanism to communicate with the consumers and producers needs to be used. 289 Flag variables are common in Go-channel shutdown-code to avoid panics on a channel, meaning the channel shutdown has to be communicated with threads before it occurs. 290 Hence, the two flags @cons_done@ and @prod_done@ are used to communicate with the producers and consumers, respectively. 291 Furthermore, producers and consumers need to shutdown separately to ensure that producers terminate before the channel is closed to avoid panicking, and to avoid the case where all the consumers terminate first, which can result in a deadlock for producers if the channel is full. 292 The producer flag is set first; 293 then after all producers terminate, the consumer flag is set and the channel is closed leaving elements in the buffer. 294 To purge the buffer, a loop is added (red) that iterates over the closed channel to process any remaining values. 295 296 Figure~\ref{l:cfa_chan_term} shows the \CFA solution. 297 Here, shutdown is communicated directly to both producers and consumers via the @close@ call. 298 A @Producer@ thread knows to stop producing when the @insert@ call on a closed channel raises exception @channel_closed@. 299 If a @Consumer@ thread ignores the first resumption exception from the @close@, the exception is reraised as a termination exception and elements are left in the buffer. 300 If a @Consumer@ thread handles the resumptions exceptions (red), control returns to complete the remove. 301 A @Consumer@ thread knows to stop consuming after all elements of a closed channel are removed and the consumer would block, which causes a termination raise of @channel_closed@. 302 The \CFA semantics allow users to communicate channel shutdown directly through the channel, without having to share extra state between threads. 303 Additionally, when the channel needs to be drained, \CFA provides users with easy options for processing the leftover channel values in the main thread or in the consumer threads. 304 305 Figure~\ref{f:ChannelBarrierTermination} shows a final shutdown example using channels to implement a barrier. 306 A Go and \CFA style solution are presented but both are implemented using \CFA syntax so they can be easily compared. 307 Implementing a barrier is interesting because threads are both producers and consumers on the barrier-internal channels, @entryWait@ and @barWait@. 308 The outline for the barrier implementation starts by initially filling the @entryWait@ channel with $N$ tickets in the barrier constructor, allowing $N$ arriving threads to remove these values and enter the barrier. 309 After @entryWait@ is empty, arriving threads block when removing. 310 However, the arriving threads that entered the barrier cannot leave the barrier until $N$ threads have arrived. 311 Hence, the entering threads block on the empty @barWait@ channel until the $N$th arriving thread inserts $N-1$ elements into @barWait@ to unblock the $N-1$ threads calling @remove@. 312 The race between these arriving threads blocking on @barWait@ and the $N$th thread inserting values into @barWait@ does not affect correctness; 313 \ie an arriving thread may or may not block on channel @barWait@ to get its value. 314 Finally, the last thread to remove from @barWait@ with ticket $N-2$, refills channel @entryWait@ with $N$ values to start the next group into the barrier. 315 316 Now, the two channels makes termination synchronization between producers and consumers difficult. 317 Interestingly, the shutdown details for this problem are also applicable to other problems with threads producing and consuming from the same channel. 318 The Go-style solution cannot use the Go @close@ call since all threads are both potentially producers and consumers, causing panics on close to be unavoidable without complex synchronization. 319 As such in Figure \ref{l:go_chan_bar}, a flush routine is needed to insert a sentinel value, @-1@, to inform threads waiting in the buffer they need to leave the barrier. 320 This sentinel value has to be checked at two points along the fast-path and sentinel values daisy-chained into the buffers. 312 321 Furthermore, an additional flag @done@ is needed to communicate to threads once they have left the barrier that they are done. 313 314 In the \CFA version~\ref{l:cfa_chan_bar}, the barrier shutdown results in an exception being thrown at threads operating on it, which informs the threads that they must terminate.322 Also note that in the Go version~\ref{l:go_chan_bar}, the size of the barrier channels has to be larger than in the \CFA version to ensure that the main thread does not block when attempting to clear the barrier. 323 For The \CFA solution~\ref{l:cfa_chan_bar}, the barrier shutdown results in an exception being thrown at threads operating on it, to inform waiting threads they must leave the barrier. 315 324 This avoids the need to use a separate communication method other than the barrier, and avoids extra conditional checks on the fast path of the barrier implementation. 316 Also note that in the Go version~\ref{l:go_chan_bar}, the size of the barrier channels has to be larger than in the \CFA version to ensure that the main thread does not block when attempting to clear the barrier.317 325 318 326 \begin{figure} … … 320 328 321 329 \begin{lrbox}{\myboxA} 330 \begin{cfa}[aboveskip=0pt,belowskip=0pt] 331 struct barrier { 332 channel( int ) barWait, entryWait; 333 int size; 334 }; 335 void ?{}( barrier & this, int size ) with(this) { 336 barWait{size + 1}; entryWait{size + 1}; 337 this.size = size; 338 for ( i; size ) 339 insert( entryWait, i ); 340 } 341 void wait( barrier & this ) with(this) { 342 int ticket = remove( entryWait ); 343 @if ( ticket == -1 ) { insert( entryWait, -1 ); return; }@ 344 if ( ticket == size - 1 ) { 345 for ( i; size - 1 ) 346 insert( barWait, i ); 347 return; 348 } 349 ticket = remove( barWait ); 350 @if ( ticket == -1 ) { insert( barWait, -1 ); return; }@ 351 if ( size == 1 || ticket == size - 2 ) { // last ? 352 for ( i; size ) 353 insert( entryWait, i ); 354 } 355 } 356 void flush(barrier & this) with(this) { 357 @insert( entryWait, -1 ); insert( barWait, -1 );@ 358 } 359 enum { Threads = 4 }; 360 barrier b{Threads}; 361 @bool done = false;@ 362 thread Thread {}; 363 void main( Thread & this ) { 364 for () { 365 @if ( done ) break;@ 366 wait( b ); 367 } 368 } 369 int main() { 370 Thread t[Threads]; 371 sleep(10`s); 372 done = true; 373 flush( b ); 374 } // wait for threads to terminate 375 \end{cfa} 376 \end{lrbox} 377 378 \begin{lrbox}{\myboxB} 322 379 \begin{cfa}[aboveskip=0pt,belowskip=0pt] 323 380 struct barrier { … … 368 425 \end{lrbox} 369 426 370 \begin{lrbox}{\myboxB} 371 \begin{cfa}[aboveskip=0pt,belowskip=0pt] 372 struct barrier { 373 channel( int ) barWait, entryWait; 374 int size; 375 }; 376 void ?{}( barrier & this, int size ) with(this) { 377 barWait{size + 1}; entryWait{size + 1}; 378 this.size = size; 379 for ( i; size ) 380 insert( entryWait, i ); 381 } 382 void wait( barrier & this ) with(this) { 383 int ticket = remove( entryWait ); 384 @if ( ticket == -1 ) { insert( entryWait, -1 ); return; }@ 385 if ( ticket == size - 1 ) { 386 for ( i; size - 1 ) 387 insert( barWait, i ); 388 return; 389 } 390 ticket = remove( barWait ); 391 @if ( ticket == -1 ) { insert( barWait, -1 ); return; }@ 392 if ( size == 1 || ticket == size - 2 ) { // last ? 393 for ( i; size ) 394 insert( entryWait, i ); 395 } 396 } 397 void flush(barrier & this) with(this) { 398 @insert( entryWait, -1 ); insert( barWait, -1 );@ 399 } 400 enum { Threads = 4 }; 401 barrier b{Threads}; 402 @bool done = false;@ 403 thread Thread {}; 404 void main( Thread & this ) { 405 for () { 406 @if ( done ) break;@ 407 wait( b ); 408 } 409 } 410 int main() { 411 Thread t[Threads]; 412 sleep(10`s); 413 done = true; 414 flush( b ); 415 } // wait for threads to terminate 416 \end{cfa} 417 \end{lrbox} 418 419 \subfloat[\CFA style]{\label{l:cfa_chan_bar}\usebox\myboxA} 427 \subfloat[Go style]{\label{l:go_chan_bar}\usebox\myboxA} 420 428 \hspace*{3pt} 421 429 \vrule 422 430 \hspace*{3pt} 423 \subfloat[ Go style]{\label{l:go_chan_bar}\usebox\myboxB}431 \subfloat[\CFA style]{\label{l:cfa_chan_bar}\usebox\myboxB} 424 432 \caption{Channel Barrier Termination} 425 433 \label{f:ChannelBarrierTermination}
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