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Test And Test-and-set
In computer science, the test-and-set CPU instruction is used to implement mutual exclusion in multiprocessor environments. Although a correct lock can be implemented with test-and-set, it can lead to resource contention in busy lock (caused by bus locking and cache invalidation when test-and-set operation needs to access memory atomically). To lower the overhead a more elaborate locking protocol test and test-and-set is used. Given a lock: ''boolean'' locked := false ''// shared lock variable'' Entry protocol is: procedure EnterCritical() Exit protocol is: procedure ExitCritical() The entry protocol uses normal memory reads to wait for the lock to become free. Test-and-set is only used to try to get the lock when normal memory read says it's free. Thus the expensive atomic memory operations happen less often than in a simple spin around test-and-set. If the programming language used supports short-circuit evaluation, the entry protocol could be implemented as: proced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical disciplines (including the design and implementation of Computer architecture, hardware and Computer programming, software). Computer science is generally considered an area of research, academic research and distinct from computer programming. Algorithms and data structures are central to computer science. The theory of computation concerns abstract models of computation and general classes of computational problem, problems that can be solved using them. The fields of cryptography and computer security involve studying the means for secure communication and for preventing Vulnerability (computing), security vulnerabilities. Computer graphics (computer science), Computer graphics and computational geometry address the generation of images. Progr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concurrent Programming
Concurrent means happening at the same time. Concurrency, concurrent, or concurrence may refer to: Law * Concurrence, in jurisprudence, the need to prove both ''actus reus'' and ''mens rea'' * Concurring opinion (also called a "concurrence"), a legal opinion which supports the conclusion, though not always the reasoning, of the majority. * Concurrent estate, a concept in property law * Concurrent resolution, a legislative measure passed by both chambers of the United States Congress * Concurrent sentences, in criminal law, periods of imprisonment that are served simultaneously Computing * Concurrency (computer science), the property of program, algorithm, or problem decomposition into order-independent or partially-ordered units * Concurrent computing, the overlapping execution of multiple interacting computational tasks * Concurrence (quantum computing), a measure used in quantum information theory * Concurrent Computer Corporation, an American computer systems manufacturer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fetch-and-add
In computer science, the fetch-and-add CPU instruction (FAA) atomically increments the contents of a memory location by a specified value. That is, fetch-and-add performs the operation :increment the value at address by , where is a memory location and is some value, and return the original value at in such a way that if this operation is executed by one process in a concurrent system, no other process will ever see an intermediate result. Fetch-and-add can be used to implement concurrency control structures such as mutex locks and semaphores. Overview The motivation for having an atomic fetch-and-add is that operations that appear in programming languages as : are not safe in a concurrent system, where multiple processes or threads are running concurrently (either in a multi-processor system, or preemptively scheduled onto some single-core systems). The reason is that such an operation is actually implemented as multiple machine instructions: # load into a register; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Test-and-set
In computer science, the test-and-set instruction is an instruction used to write (set) 1 to a memory location and return its old value as a single atomic (i.e., non-interruptible) operation. The caller can then "test" the result to see if the state was changed by the call. If multiple processes may access the same memory location, and if a process is currently performing a test-and-set, no other process may begin another test-and-set until the first process's test-and-set is finished. A CPU may use a test-and-set instruction offered by another electronic component, such as dual-port RAM; a CPU itself may also offer a test-and-set instruction. A lock can be built using an atomic test-and-set instruction as follows: This code assumes that the memory location was initialized to 0 at some point prior to the first test-and-set. The calling process obtains the lock if the old value was 0, otherwise the while-loop spins waiting to acquire the lock. This is called a spinlock. At any p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutual Exclusion
In computer science, mutual exclusion is a property of concurrency control, which is instituted for the purpose of preventing race conditions. It is the requirement that one thread of execution never enters a critical section while a concurrent thread of execution is already accessing said critical section, which refers to an interval of time during which a thread of execution accesses a shared resource or shared memory. The shared resource is a data object, which two or more concurrent threads are trying to modify (where two concurrent read operations are permitted but, no two concurrent write operations or one read and one write are permitted, since it leads to data inconsistency). Mutual exclusion algorithm ensures that if a process is already performing write operation on a data object ritical sectionno other process/thread is allowed to access/modify the same object until the first process has finished writing upon the data object ritical sectionand released the object fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parallel Programming
Parallel computing is a type of computation in which many calculations or processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. There are several different forms of parallel computing: bit-level, instruction-level, data, and task parallelism. Parallelism has long been employed in high-performance computing, but has gained broader interest due to the physical constraints preventing frequency scaling.S.V. Adve ''et al.'' (November 2008)"Parallel Computing Research at Illinois: The UPCRC Agenda" (PDF). Parallel@Illinois, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "The main techniques for these performance benefits—increased clock frequency and smarter but increasingly complex architectures—are now hitting the so-called power wall. The computer industry has accepted that future performance increases must largely come from increasing the number of processors (or cores) on a die, rather than ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parallel Processor
Parallel computing is a type of computation in which many calculations or Process (computing), processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. There are several different forms of parallel computing: Bit-level parallelism, bit-level, Instruction-level parallelism, instruction-level, Data parallelism, data, and task parallelism. Parallelism has long been employed in high-performance computing, but has gained broader interest due to the physical constraints preventing frequency scaling.S.V. Adve ''et al.'' (November 2008)"Parallel Computing Research at Illinois: The UPCRC Agenda" (PDF). Parallel@Illinois, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "The main techniques for these performance benefits—increased clock frequency and smarter but increasingly complex architectures—are now hitting the so-called power wall. The computer industry has accepted that future performance increases mus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-pattern
An anti-pattern in software engineering, project management, and business processes is a common response to a recurring problem that is usually ineffective and risks being highly counterproductive. The term, coined in 1995 by computer programmer Andrew Koenig (programmer), Andrew Koenig, was inspired by the book ''Design Patterns (book), Design Patterns'' (which highlights a number of design patterns in software development that its authors considered to be highly reliable and effective) and first published in his article in the ''Journal of Object-Oriented Programming''. A further paper in 1996 presented by Michael Ackroyd at the Object World West Conference also documented anti-patterns. It was, however, the 1998 book ''AntiPatterns'' that both popularized the idea and extended its scope beyond the field of software design to include software architecture and project management. Other authors have extended it further since to encompass environmental/organizational/cultural anti-pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Double-checked Locking
In software engineering, double-checked locking (also known as "double-checked locking optimization") is a software design pattern used to reduce the overhead of acquiring a lock by testing the locking criterion (the "lock hint") before acquiring the lock. Locking occurs only if the locking criterion check indicates that locking is required. The pattern, when implemented in some language/hardware combinations, can be unsafe. At times, it can be considered an anti-pattern.David Bacon et alThe "Double-Checked Locking is Broken" Declaration It is typically used to reduce locking overhead when implementing "lazy initialization" in a multi-threaded environment, especially as part of the Singleton pattern. Lazy initialization avoids initializing a value until the first time it is accessed. Usage in C++11 For the singleton pattern, double-checked locking is not needed: Singleton& GetInstance() C++11 and beyond also provide a built-in double-checked locking pattern in the form of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Double-checked Locking
In software engineering, double-checked locking (also known as "double-checked locking optimization") is a software design pattern used to reduce the overhead of acquiring a lock by testing the locking criterion (the "lock hint") before acquiring the lock. Locking occurs only if the locking criterion check indicates that locking is required. The pattern, when implemented in some language/hardware combinations, can be unsafe. At times, it can be considered an anti-pattern.David Bacon et alThe "Double-Checked Locking is Broken" Declaration It is typically used to reduce locking overhead when implementing "lazy initialization" in a multi-threaded environment, especially as part of the Singleton pattern. Lazy initialization avoids initializing a value until the first time it is accessed. Usage in C++11 For the singleton pattern, double-checked locking is not needed: Singleton& GetInstance() C++11 and beyond also provide a built-in double-checked locking pattern in the form of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Programming Idiom
In computer programming, a programming idiom or code idiom is a group of code fragments sharing an equivalent semantic role, which recurs frequently across software projects often expressing a special feature of a recurring construct in one or more programming languages or libraries. Developers recognize programming idioms by associating and giving meaning (semantic role) to one or more syntactical expressions within code snippets (code fragments). The idiom can be seen as a concept underlying a pattern in code, which is represented in implementation by contiguous or scattered code fragments. These fragments are available in several programming languages, frameworks or even libraries. Generally speaking, a programming idiom's semantic role is a natural language expression of a simple task, algorithm, or data structure that is not a built-in feature in the programming language being used, or, conversely, the use of an unusual or notable feature that ''is'' built into a programming ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
System Programming
Systems programming, or system programming, is the activity of programming computer system software. The primary distinguishing characteristic of systems programming when compared to application programming is that application programming aims to produce software which provides services to the user directly (e.g. word processor), whereas systems programming aims to produce software and software platforms which provide services to other software, are performance constrained, or both (e.g. operating systems, computational science applications, game engines, industrial automation, and software as a service applications). Systems programming requires a great degree of hardware awareness. Its goal is to achieve efficient use of available resources, either because the software itself is performance critical or because even small efficiency improvements directly transform into significant savings of time or money. Overview The following attributes characterize systems programming: * The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
