class ThreadSafe::Util::Striped64

A Ruby port of the Doug Lea's jsr166e.Striped64 class version 1.6 available in public domain.

Original source code available here: gee.cs.oswego.edu/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/jsr166/src/jsr166e/Striped64.java?revision=1.6

Class holding common representation and mechanics for classes supporting dynamic striping on 64bit values.

This class maintains a lazily-initialized table of atomically updated variables, plus an extra base field. The table size is a power of two. Indexing uses masked per-thread hash codes. Nearly all methods on this class are private, accessed directly by subclasses.

Table entries are of class Cell; a variant of AtomicLong padded to reduce cache contention on most processors. Padding is overkill for most Atomics because they are usually irregularly scattered in memory and thus don't interfere much with each other. But Atomic objects residing in arrays will tend to be placed adjacent to each other, and so will most often share cache lines (with a huge negative performance impact) without this precaution.

In part because +Cell+s are relatively large, we avoid creating them until they are needed. When there is no contention, all updates are made to the base field. Upon first contention (a failed CAS on base update), the table is initialized to size 2. The table size is doubled upon further contention until reaching the nearest power of two greater than or equal to the number of CPUS. Table slots remain empty (nil) until they are needed.

A single spinlock (busy) is used for initializing and resizing the table, as well as populating slots with new +Cell+s. There is no need for a blocking lock: When the lock is not available, threads try other slots (or the base). During these retries, there is increased contention and reduced locality, which is still better than alternatives.

Per-thread hash codes are initialized to random values. Contention and/or table collisions are indicated by failed CASes when performing an update operation (see method retry_update). Upon a collision, if the table size is less than the capacity, it is doubled in size unless some other thread holds the lock. If a hashed slot is empty, and lock is available, a new Cell is created. Otherwise, if the slot exists, a CAS is tried. Retries proceed by “double hashing”, using a secondary hash (XorShift) to try to find a free slot.

The table size is capped because, when there are more threads than CPUs, supposing that each thread were bound to a CPU, there would exist a perfect hash function mapping threads to slots that eliminates collisions. When we reach capacity, we search for this mapping by randomly varying the hash codes of colliding threads. Because search is random, and collisions only become known via CAS failures, convergence can be slow, and because threads are typically not bound to CPUS forever, may not occur at all. However, despite these limitations, observed contention rates are typically low in these cases.

It is possible for a Cell to become unused when threads that once hashed to it terminate, as well as in the case where doubling the table causes no thread to hash to it under expanded mask. We do not try to detect or remove such cells, under the assumption that for long-running instances, observed contention levels will recur, so the cells will eventually be needed again; and for short-lived ones, it does not matter.

Constants

THREAD_LOCAL_KEY

Static per-thread hash code key. Shared across all instances to reduce Thread locals pollution and because adjustments due to collisions in one table are likely to be appropriate for others.

Public Class Methods

new() click to toggle source
Calls superclass method
# File lib/thread_safe/util/striped64.rb, line 89
def initialize
  super()
  self.busy = false
  self.base = 0
end

Public Instance Methods

retry_update(x, hash_code, was_uncontended) { |current_value| ... } click to toggle source

Handles cases of updates involving initialization, resizing, creating new Cells, and/or contention. See above for explanation. This method suffers the usual non-modularity problems of optimistic retry code, relying on rechecked sets of reads.

Arguments:

x

the value

hash_code

hash code used

x

false if CAS failed before call

# File lib/thread_safe/util/striped64.rb, line 108
def retry_update(x, hash_code, was_uncontended) # :yields: current_value
  hash     = hash_code
  collided = false # True if last slot nonempty
  while true
    if current_cells = cells
      if !(cell = current_cells.volatile_get_by_hash(hash))
        if busy?
          collided = false
        else # Try to attach new Cell
          if try_to_install_new_cell(Cell.new(x), hash) # Optimistically create and try to insert new cell
            break
          else
            redo # Slot is now non-empty
          end
        end
      elsif !was_uncontended # CAS already known to fail
        was_uncontended = true # Continue after rehash
      elsif cell.cas_computed {|current_value| yield current_value}
        break
      elsif current_cells.size >= CPU_COUNT || cells != current_cells # At max size or stale
        collided = false
      elsif collided && expand_table_unless_stale(current_cells)
        collided = false
        redo # Retry with expanded table
      else
        collided = true
      end
      hash = XorShiftRandom.xorshift(hash)

    elsif try_initialize_cells(x, hash) || cas_base_computed {|current_base| yield current_base}
      break
    end
  end
  self.hash_code = hash
end

Private Instance Methods

cas_base_computed() { |current_base| ... } click to toggle source
# File lib/thread_safe/util/striped64.rb, line 172
def cas_base_computed
  cas_base(current_base = base, yield(current_base))
end
expand_table_unless_stale(current_cells) click to toggle source
# File lib/thread_safe/util/striped64.rb, line 192
def expand_table_unless_stale(current_cells)
  try_in_busy do
    if current_cells == cells # Recheck under lock
      new_cells = current_cells.next_in_size_table
      current_cells.each_with_index {|x, i| new_cells.volatile_set(i, x)}
      self.cells = new_cells
    end
  end
end
free?() click to toggle source
# File lib/thread_safe/util/striped64.rb, line 176
def free?
  !busy?
end
hash_code() click to toggle source

A thread-local hash code accessor. The code is initially random, but may be set to a different value upon collisions.

# File lib/thread_safe/util/striped64.rb, line 153
def hash_code
  Thread.current[THREAD_LOCAL_KEY] ||= XorShiftRandom.get
end
hash_code=(hash) click to toggle source
# File lib/thread_safe/util/striped64.rb, line 157
def hash_code=(hash)
  Thread.current[THREAD_LOCAL_KEY] = hash
end
internal_reset(initial_value) click to toggle source

Sets base and all cells to the given value.

# File lib/thread_safe/util/striped64.rb, line 162
def internal_reset(initial_value)
  current_cells = cells
  self.base     = initial_value
  if current_cells
    current_cells.each do |cell|
      cell.value = initial_value if cell
    end
  end
end
try_in_busy() { || ... } click to toggle source
# File lib/thread_safe/util/striped64.rb, line 211
def try_in_busy
  if cas_busy(false, true)
    begin
      yield
    ensure
      self.busy = false
    end
  end
end
try_initialize_cells(x, hash) click to toggle source
# File lib/thread_safe/util/striped64.rb, line 180
def try_initialize_cells(x, hash)
  if free? && !cells
    try_in_busy do
      unless cells # Recheck under lock
        new_cells = PowerOfTwoTuple.new(2)
        new_cells.volatile_set_by_hash(hash, Cell.new(x))
        self.cells = new_cells
      end
    end
  end
end
try_to_install_new_cell(new_cell, hash) click to toggle source
# File lib/thread_safe/util/striped64.rb, line 202
def try_to_install_new_cell(new_cell, hash)
  try_in_busy do
    # Recheck under lock
    if (current_cells = cells) && !current_cells.volatile_get(i = current_cells.hash_to_index(hash))
      current_cells.volatile_set(i, new_cell)
    end
  end
end