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Is blocking a free class of an atomic state right?

I'm just looking for a review (obvious flaws / ways to improve it) when trying to implement atomic read / write in a structure.

There will be one stream of letters and several streams of reading. The goal is to prevent the reader from having an inconsistent view of the structure without disturbing the writer too much.

I use the atomic primitive fetch-and-add, in this case provided by the Qt framework.

For instance:

/* global */
OneWriterAtomicState<Point> atomicState;

/* Writer */
while(true) {  
  MyStruct s = atomicState.getState()
  s.x += 2; s.y += 2;
  atomicState.setState(s);
}

/* Reader */
while(true) {  
  MyStruct s = atomicState.getState()
  drawBox(s.x,s.y);
}

Implementation of OneWriterAtomicState:

template <class T>
class OneWriterAtomicState
{
public:
    OneWriterAtomicState()
        : seqNumber(0)
    {
    }

    void setState(T& state) {
        this->seqNumber.fetchAndAddOrdered(1);
        this->state = state;
        this->seqNumber.fetchAndAddOrdered(1);
    }

    T getState(){
        T result;
        int seq;
        bool seq_changed = true;

        /* repeat while seq is ODD or if seq changes during read operation */
        while( (seq=this->seqNumber.fetchAndAddOrdered(0)) & 0x01 || seq_changed ) {
            result = this->state;
            seq_changed = (this->seqNumber.fetchAndAddOrdered(0)!=seq);
        }
        return result;
    }


private:
    QAtomicInt seqNumber;
    T state;
}

Here is the second version (memcpy, the reader is inferior, hopefully getState () is fixed):

template <class T>
class OneWriterAtomicState
{

public:
    OneWriterAtomicState()
        : seqNumber(0)
    {
        /* Force a compile-time error if T is NOT a type we can copy with memcpy */
        Q_STATIC_ASSERT(!QTypeInfo<T>::isStatic);
    }

    void setState(T* state) {
        this->seqNumber.fetchAndAddOrdered(1);
        memcpy(&this->state,state,sizeof(T));
        this->seqNumber.fetchAndAddOrdered(1);
    }

    void getState(T* result){
        int seq_before;
        int seq_after  = this->seqNumber.fetchAndAddOrdered(0);
        bool seq_changed = true;
        bool firstIteration = true;

        /* repeat while seq_before is ODD or if seq changes during read operation */
        while( ((seq_before=seq_after) & 0x01) || seq_changed ) {

            /* Dont want to yield on first attempt */
            if(!firstIteration) {
                /* Give the writer a chance to finish */
                QThread::yieldCurrentThread();
            } else firstIteration = false;

            memcpy(result,&this->state,sizeof(T));
            seq_after = this->seqNumber.fetchAndAddOrdered(0);
            seq_changed = (seq_before!=seq_after);
        }
    }

    bool isInitialized() {  return (seqNumber>0); }

private:
    QAtomicInt seqNumber;
    T state;
} ;

#endif // ONEWRITERATOMICSTATE_H
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3 answers

The algorithm is not entirely correct. Here's one possible thread rotation where the reader gets conflicting data:

state initialized to {0,0} and seqNumber to 0

Writer:
seqNumber = 1;
state.x = 1;

Reader:
seq = seqNumber; //1
result = state; //{1,0}
seq_changed = (seqNumber != seq); //false

Writer:
state.y = 1;
seqNumber = 2;

Reader:
jumps back to the start of the loop
seq = seqNumber; //2
steps out of the loop because seq == 2 and seq_changed == false

, , seqNumber , .

while( (seq=this->seqNumber.fetchAndAddOrdered(0)) & 0x01 || seq_changed ) {
    result = this->state;
    seq_changed = (this->seqNumber.fetchAndAddOrdered(0)!=seq);
    //If writer updates seqNumber here to even number bad things may happen
}

:

T getState(){
    T result;
    int seq;
    int newseq = seqNumber.fetchAndAddOrdered(0);
    bool seq_changed = true;

    while( (seq = newseq) & 0x01 || seq_changed ) {
        result = state;
        newseq = seqNumber.fetchAndAddOrdered(0);
        seq_changed = (newseq != seq);
    }
    return result;
}

, , .:) , , , , , .

, (fetchAndAdd) . , seqNumber, , . , QAtomicInt; .

edit: wilx , T

+2

, , T . T result = this->state;.

, - rwlocks .

+1

, , , livelock. , , . - .

, .

+1

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