[lttng-dev] [PATCH 06/16] wfcqueue: implement mutex-free splice

Mathieu Desnoyers mathieu.desnoyers at efficios.com
Wed Nov 21 10:18:24 EST 2012


* Lai Jiangshan (laijs at cn.fujitsu.com) wrote:
> On 11/21/2012 03:40 AM, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> > A carefully crafted splice operation does not need to use an external
> > mutex to synchronize against other splice operations.
> > 
> > The trick is atomically exchange the head next pointer with
> > NULL. If the pointer we replaced was NULL, it means the queue was
> > possibly empty. If head next was not NULL, by setting head to NULL, we
> > ensure that concurrent splice operations are going to see an empty
> > queue, even if concurrent enqueue operations move tail further. This
> > means that as long as we are within splice, after setting head to NULL,
> > but before moving tail back to head, concurrent splice operations will
> > always see an empty queue, therefore acting as mutual exclusion.
> > 
> > If exchange returns a NULL head, we confirm that it was indeed empty by
> > checking if the tail pointer points to the head node, busy-waiting if
> > necessary.
> > 
> > Then the last step is to move the tail pointer to head. At that point,
> > enqueuers are going to start enqueuing at head again, and other splice
> > operations will be able to proceed.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers at efficios.com>
> > ---
> >  urcu/static/wfcqueue.h |   68 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------------
> >  urcu/wfcqueue.h        |   40 ++++++++++++++++++----------
> >  wfcqueue.c             |    2 +-
> >  3 files changed, 79 insertions(+), 31 deletions(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/urcu/static/wfcqueue.h b/urcu/static/wfcqueue.h
> > index 8774c03..4b2de50 100644
> > --- a/urcu/static/wfcqueue.h
> > +++ b/urcu/static/wfcqueue.h
> > @@ -46,15 +46,30 @@ extern "C" {
> >   * half-wait-free/half-blocking queue implementation done by Paul E.
> >   * McKenney.
> >   *
> > - * Mutual exclusion of __cds_wfcq_* API
> > - *
> > - * Unless otherwise stated, the caller must ensure mutual exclusion of
> > - * queue update operations "dequeue" and "splice" (for source queue).
> > - * Queue read operations "first" and "next", which are used by
> > - * "for_each" iterations, need to be protected against concurrent
> > - * "dequeue" and "splice" (for source queue) by the caller.
> > - * "enqueue", "splice" (for destination queue), and "empty" are the only
> > - * operations that can be used without any mutual exclusion.
> > + * Mutual exclusion of cds_wfcq_* / __cds_wfcq_* API
> > + *
> > + * Synchronization table:
> > + *
> > + * External synchronization techniques described in the API below is
> > + * required between pairs marked with "X". No external synchronization
> > + * required between pairs marked with "-".
> > + *
> > + * Legend:
> > + * [1] cds_wfcq_enqueue
> > + * [2] __cds_wfcq_splice (destination queue)
> > + * [3] __cds_wfcq_dequeue
> > + * [4] __cds_wfcq_splice (source queue)
> > + * [5] __cds_wfcq_first
> > + * [6] __cds_wfcq_next
> > + *
> > + *     [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
> > + * [1]  -   -   -   -   -   -
> > + * [2]  -   -   -   -   -   -
> > + * [3]  -   -   X   X   X   X
> > + * [4]  -   -   X   -   X   X
> > + * [5]  -   -   X   X   -   -
> > + * [6]  -   -   X   X   -   -
> > + *
> >   * Mutual exclusion can be ensured by holding cds_wfcq_dequeue_lock().
> >   *
> >   * For convenience, cds_wfcq_dequeue_blocking() and
> > @@ -399,6 +414,16 @@ ___cds_wfcq_dequeue_nonblocking(struct cds_wfcq_head *head,
> >  	return ___cds_wfcq_dequeue(head, tail, 0);
> >  }
> >  
> > +/*
> > + * __cds_wfcq_splice: enqueue all src_q nodes at the end of dest_q.
> > + *
> > + * Dequeue all nodes from src_q.
> > + * dest_q must be already initialized.
> > + * Mutual exclusion for src_q should be ensured by the caller as
> > + * specified in the "Synchronisation table".
> > + * Returns enum cds_wfcq_ret which indicates the state of the src or
> > + * dest queue.
> > + */
> >  static inline enum cds_wfcq_ret
> >  ___cds_wfcq_splice(
> >  		struct cds_wfcq_head *dest_q_head,
> > @@ -408,14 +433,26 @@ ___cds_wfcq_splice(
> >  		int blocking)
> >  {
> >  	struct cds_wfcq_node *head, *tail;
> > +	int attempt = 0;
> 
> +again:
> 
> >  
> >  	if (_cds_wfcq_empty(src_q_head, src_q_tail))
> >  		return CDS_WFCQ_RET_SRC_EMPTY;
> >  
> > -	head = ___cds_wfcq_node_sync_next(&src_q_head->node, blocking);
> > -	if (head == CDS_WFCQ_WOULDBLOCK)
> > -		return CDS_WFCQ_RET_WOULDBLOCK;
> > -	_cds_wfcq_node_init(&src_q_head->node);
> > +	for (;;) {
> > +		head = uatomic_xchg(&src_q_head->node.next, NULL);
> > +		if (head)
> > +			break;	/* non-empty */
> > +		if (CMM_LOAD_SHARED(src_q_tail->p) == &src_q_head->node)
> > +			return CDS_WFCQ_RET_SRC_EMPTY;
> > +		if (!blocking)
> > +			return CDS_WFCQ_RET_WOULDBLOCK;
> > +		if (++attempt >= WFCQ_ADAPT_ATTEMPTS) {
> > +			poll(NULL, 0, WFCQ_WAIT);	/* Wait for 10ms */
> > +			attempt = 0;
> > +		} else {
> > +			caa_cpu_relax();
> > +		}
> > +	}
> 
> 
> Is it OK:
> 
> -	_cds_wfcq_node_init(&src_q_head->node);
> +	head = uatomic_xchg(&src_q_head->node.next, NULL);
> +	if (!head)
> +		goto again;

You are right that we can simplify the code a bit by re-using
_cds_wfcq_empty() to test validate emptiness of the source queue, rather
than open-code it.

The only issue here is that the busy-loop (goto again) will not invoke
caa_cpu_relax(), nor do adaptative waiting like
___cds_wfcq_node_sync_next() normally does. Also, it does not check for
blocking/non-blocking caller. Also, whenever possible, I like to have
for () or do/while constructs in place to make it clear that we can loop.
So a modification of your proposal would look like:

/* Return 1 if nonblocking and needs to block, 0 otherwise */
static inline
bool ___cds_wfcq_busy_wait(int *attempt, int blocking)
{
        if (!blocking)
                return 1;
        if (+attempt >= WFCQ_ADAPT_ATTEMPTS) {
                poll(NULL, 0, WFCQ_WAIT);       /* Wait for 10ms */
                attempt = 0;
        } else {
                caa_cpu_relax();
        }
        return 0;
}

[...]

        struct cds_wfcq_node *head, *tail;
        int attempt = 0;

        for (;;) {
                if (_cds_wfcq_empty(src_q_head, src_q_tail))
                        return CDS_WFCQ_RET_SRC_EMPTY;
                head = uatomic_xchg(&src_q_head->node.next, NULL);
                if (head)
                        break;
                if (___cds_wfcq_busy_wait(&attempt, blocking))
                        return CDS_WFCQ_RET_WOULDBLOCK;
        }


Thoughts ?

Thanks,

Mathieu


> 
> >  
> >  	/*
> >  	 * Memory barrier implied before uatomic_xchg() orders store to
> > @@ -435,14 +472,13 @@ ___cds_wfcq_splice(
> >  		return CDS_WFCQ_RET_DEST_EMPTY;
> >  }
> >  
> > -
> >  /*
> >   * __cds_wfcq_splice_blocking: enqueue all src_q nodes at the end of dest_q.
> >   *
> >   * Dequeue all nodes from src_q.
> >   * dest_q must be already initialized.
> > - * Dequeue/splice/iteration mutual exclusion for src_q should be ensured
> > - * by the caller.
> > + * Mutual exclusion for src_q should be ensured by the caller as
> > + * specified in the "Synchronisation table".
> >   * Returns enum cds_wfcq_ret which indicates the state of the src or
> >   * dest queue. Never returns CDS_WFCQ_RET_WOULDBLOCK.
> >   */
> > diff --git a/urcu/wfcqueue.h b/urcu/wfcqueue.h
> > index ddf6b87..d9ec534 100644
> > --- a/urcu/wfcqueue.h
> > +++ b/urcu/wfcqueue.h
> > @@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ extern "C" {
> >  #define CDS_WFCQ_WOULDBLOCK	((void *) -1UL)
> >  
> >  enum cds_wfcq_ret {
> > -	CDS_WFCQ_RET_WOULDBLOCK = 	-1,
> > +	CDS_WFCQ_RET_WOULDBLOCK =	-1,
> >  	CDS_WFCQ_RET_DEST_EMPTY =	0,
> >  	CDS_WFCQ_RET_DEST_NON_EMPTY =	1,
> >  	CDS_WFCQ_RET_SRC_EMPTY = 	2,
> > @@ -110,13 +110,28 @@ struct cds_wfcq_tail {
> >  /*
> >   * Mutual exclusion of cds_wfcq_* / __cds_wfcq_* API
> >   *
> > - * Unless otherwise stated, the caller must ensure mutual exclusion of
> > - * queue update operations "dequeue" and "splice" (for source queue).
> > - * Queue read operations "first" and "next", which are used by
> > - * "for_each" iterations, need to be protected against concurrent
> > - * "dequeue" and "splice" (for source queue) by the caller.
> > - * "enqueue", "splice" (for destination queue), and "empty" are the only
> > - * operations that can be used without any mutual exclusion.
> > + * Synchronization table:
> > + *
> > + * External synchronization techniques described in the API below is
> > + * required between pairs marked with "X". No external synchronization
> > + * required between pairs marked with "-".
> > + *
> > + * Legend:
> > + * [1] cds_wfcq_enqueue
> > + * [2] __cds_wfcq_splice (destination queue)
> > + * [3] __cds_wfcq_dequeue
> > + * [4] __cds_wfcq_splice (source queue)
> > + * [5] __cds_wfcq_first
> > + * [6] __cds_wfcq_next
> > + *
> > + *     [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
> > + * [1]  -   -   -   -   -   -
> > + * [2]  -   -   -   -   -   -
> > + * [3]  -   -   X   X   X   X
> > + * [4]  -   -   X   -   X   X
> > + * [5]  -   -   X   X   -   -
> > + * [6]  -   -   X   X   -   -
> > + *
> >   * Mutual exclusion can be ensured by holding cds_wfcq_dequeue_lock().
> >   *
> >   * For convenience, cds_wfcq_dequeue_blocking() and
> > @@ -231,13 +246,10 @@ extern struct cds_wfcq_node *__cds_wfcq_dequeue_nonblocking(
> >   *
> >   * Dequeue all nodes from src_q.
> >   * dest_q must be already initialized.
> > - * Content written into the node before enqueue is guaranteed to be
> > - * consistent, but no other memory ordering is ensured.
> > - * Dequeue/splice/iteration mutual exclusion for src_q should be ensured
> > - * by the caller.
> > - *
> > + * Mutual exclusion for src_q should be ensured by the caller as
> > + * specified in the "Synchronisation table".
> >   * Returns enum cds_wfcq_ret which indicates the state of the src or
> > - * dest queue. Cannot block.
> > + * dest queue. Never returns CDS_WFCQ_RET_WOULDBLOCK.
> >   */
> >  extern enum cds_wfcq_ret __cds_wfcq_splice_blocking(
> >  		struct cds_wfcq_head *dest_q_head,
> > diff --git a/wfcqueue.c b/wfcqueue.c
> > index 207df95..ab0eb93 100644
> > --- a/wfcqueue.c
> > +++ b/wfcqueue.c
> > @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
> >  /*
> >   * wfcqueue.c
> >   *
> > - * Userspace RCU library - Concurrent queue with Wait-Free Enqueue/Blocking Dequeue
> > + * Userspace RCU library - Concurrent Queue with Wait-Free Enqueue/Blocking Dequeue
> >   *
> >   * Copyright 2010-2012 - Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers at efficios.com>
> >   * Copyright 2011-2012 - Lai Jiangshan <laijs at cn.fujitsu.com>
> 

-- 
Mathieu Desnoyers
Operating System Efficiency R&D Consultant
EfficiOS Inc.
http://www.efficios.com



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