I am a bit confused about the role of std::unique_lock when working with std::condition_variable. As far as I understood the documentation, std::unique_lock is basically a bloated lock guard, with the possibility to swap the state between two locks.
I've so far used pthread_cond_wait(pthread_cond_t *cond, pthread_mutex_t *mutex) for this purpose (I guess that's what the STL uses on posix). It takes a mutex, not a lock.
What's the difference here? Is the fact that std::condition_variable deals with std::unique_lock an optimization? If so, how exactly is it faster?
so there is no technical reason?
I upvoted cmeerw's answer because I believe he gave a technical reason. Let's walk through it. Let's pretend that the committee had decided to have condition_variable wait on a mutex. Here is code using that design:
void foo()
{
mut.lock();
// mut locked by this thread here
while (not_ready)
cv.wait(mut);
// mut locked by this thread here
mut.unlock();
}
This is exactly how one shouldn't use a condition_variable. In the regions marked with:
// mut locked by this thread here
there is an exception safety problem, and it is a serious one. If an exception is thrown in these areas (or by cv.wait itself), the locked state of the mutex is leaked unless a try/catch is also put in somewhere to catch the exception and unlock it. But that's just more code you're asking the programmer to write.
Let's say that the programmer knows how to write exception safe code, and knows to use unique_lock to achieve it. Now the code looks like this:
void foo()
{
unique_lock<mutex> lk(mut);
// mut locked by this thread here
while (not_ready)
cv.wait(*lk.mutex());
// mut locked by this thread here
}
This is much better, but it is still not a great situation. The condition_variable interface is making the programmer go out of his way to get things to work. There is a possible null pointer dereference if lk accidentally does not reference a mutex. And there is no way for condition_variable::wait to check that this thread does own the lock on mut.
Oh, just remembered, there is also the danger that the programmer may choose the wrong unique_lock member function to expose the mutex. *lk.release() would be disastrous here.
Now let's look at how the code is written with the actual condition_variable API that takes a unique_lock<mutex>:
void foo()
{
unique_lock<mutex> lk(mut);
// mut locked by this thread here
while (not_ready)
cv.wait(lk);
// mut locked by this thread here
}
This code is as simple as it can get.
It is exception safe.
The wait function can check lk.owns_lock() and throw an exception if it is false.
These are technical reasons that drove the API design of condition_variable.
Additionally, condition_variable::wait doesn't take a lock_guard<mutex> because lock_guard<mutex> is how you say: I own the lock on this mutex until lock_guard<mutex> destructs. But when you call condition_variable::wait, you implicitly release the lock on the mutex. So that action is inconsistent with the lock_guard use case / statement.
We needed unique_lock anyway so that one could return locks from functions, put them into containers, and lock/unlock mutexes in non-scoped patterns in an exception safe way, so unique_lock was the natural choice for condition_variable::wait.
Update
bamboon suggested in the comments below that I contrast condition_variable_any, so here goes:
Question: Why isn't condition_variable::wait templated so that I can pass any Lockable type to it?
Answer:
That is really cool functionality to have. For example this paper demonstrates code that waits on a shared_lock (rwlock) in shared mode on a condition variable (something unheard of in the posix world, but very useful nonetheless). However the functionality is more expensive.
So the committee introduced a new type with this functionality:
`condition_variable_any`
With this condition_variable adaptor one can wait on any lockable type. If it has members lock() and unlock(), you are good to go. A proper implementation of condition_variable_any requires a condition_variable data member and a shared_ptr<mutex> data member.
Because this new functionality is more expensive than your basic condition_variable::wait, and because condition_variable is such a low level tool, this very useful but more expensive functionality was put into a separate class so that you only pay for it if you use it.
It's essentially an API design decision to make the API as safe as possible by default (with the additional overhead being seen as negligible). By requiring to pass a unique_lock instead of a raw mutex users of the API are directed towards writing correct code (in the presence of exceptions).
In recent years the focus of the C++ language has shifted towards making it safe by default (but still allowing users to shoot themselves into their feet if they want to and try hard enough).
Related
I'd like to write a function that is accessible only by a single thread at a time. I don't need busy waits, a brutal 'rejection' is enough if another thread is already running it. This is what I have come up with so far:
std::atomic<bool> busy (false);
bool func()
{
if (m_busy.exchange(true) == true)
return false;
// ... do stuff ...
m_busy.exchange(false);
return true;
}
Is the logic for the atomic exchange correct?
Is it correct to mark the two atomic operations as std::memory_order_acq_rel? As far as I understand a relaxed ordering (std::memory_order_relaxed) wouldn't be enough to prevent reordering.
Your atomic swap implementation might work. But trying to do thread safe programming without a lock is most always fraught with issues and is often harder to maintain.
Unless there's a performance improvement that's needed, then std::mutex with the try_lock() method is all you need, eg:
std::mutex mtx;
bool func()
{
// making use of std::unique_lock so if the code throws an
// exception, the std::mutex will still get unlocked correctly...
std::unique_lock<std::mutex> lck(mtx, std::try_to_lock);
bool gotLock = lck.owns_lock();
if (gotLock)
{
// do stuff
}
return gotLock;
}
Your code looks correct to me, as long as you leave the critical section by falling out, not returning or throwing an exception.
You can unlock with a release store; an RMW (like exchange) is unnecessary. The initial exchange only needs acquire. (But does need to be an atomic RMW like exchange or compare_exchange_strong)
Note that ISO C++ says that taking a std::mutex is an "acquire" operation, and releasing is is a "release" operation, because that's the minimum necessary for keeping the critical section contained between the taking and the releasing.
Your algo is exactly like a spinlock, but without retry if the lock's already taken. (i.e. just a try_lock). All the reasoning about necessary memory-order for locking applies here, too. What you've implemented is logically equivalent to the try_lock / unlock in #selbie's answer, and very likely performance-equivalent, too. If you never use mtx.lock() or whatever, you're never actually blocking i.e. waiting for another thread to do something, so your code is still potentially lock-free in the progress-guarantee sense.
Rolling your own with an atomic<bool> is probably good; using std::mutex here gains you nothing; you want it to be doing only this for try-lock and unlock. That's certainly possible (with some extra function-call overhead), but some implementations might do something more. You're not using any of the functionality beyond that. The one nice thing std::mutex gives you is the comfort of knowing that it safely and correctly implements try_lock and unlock. But if you understand locking and acquire / release, it's easy to get that right yourself.
The usual performance reason to not roll your own locking is that mutex will be tuned for the OS and typical hardware, with stuff like exponential backoff, x86 pause instructions while spinning a few times, then fallback to a system call. And efficient wakeup via system calls like Linux futex. All of this is only beneficial to the blocking behaviour. .try_lock leaves that all unused, and if you never have any thread sleeping then unlock never has any other threads to notify.
There is one advantage to using std::mutex: you can use RAII without having to roll your own wrapper class. std::unique_lock with the std::try_to_lock policy will do this. This will make your function exception-safe, making sure to always unlock before exiting, if it got the lock.
There is a set of problems in which mutexes themselves (without additional stuff like condition variables) can be used to synchronize threads.
For example, let's say I want a background thread to perform some possibly-time-consuming initialization and then to perform its main job, but the main job should start not earlier than I give a signal from the main thread:
std::thread backgroundThread ([]() {
initialize ();
waitForSignalQ ();
doMainJob ();
});
…;
emitSignalQ ();
Yes, I know that I can use mutex + boolean variable + condition variable to implement waitForSignalQ and emitSignalQ. Or, I can use void-returning future + void-returning promice for the same purpose, as Scott Meyers suggests.
But the simpler approach here seems to be using just a single mutex:
std::mutex myMutex;
std::unique_lock <std::mutex> backgroundThreadCantStartItsMainJob (myMutex);
std::thread backgroundThread ([&myMutex]() {
initialize ();
// This line won't return until myMutex is unlocked:
std::lock_quard <std::mutex> (myMutex);
doMainJob ();
});
…;
// This line will unlock myMutex:
backgroundThreadCantStartItsMainJob.unlock();
But is this approach valid? Or are there some drawbacks (for example: OS-level mutex-locking time limit, false positives from software analysis tools, etc)?
P. S.:
• Yes, I know that the problems will arise if myMutex isn't unlocked (due to an exception before backgroundThreadCantStartItsMainJob.unlock() or etc), but the question is not about that (with condvar and future approaches we get the same problem if the main thread "forgets" to emit the signal Q).
• Yes, I know that in practice it might make sense to have several variants of signal Q (like "proceed to the main job" vs. "cancel"), the question is not about that (as well as the condvar and future approaches, the discussed approach allows passing extra data too).
There's no specific downsides to locking a mutex for a long time.
If I understood correctly, you have a thread that will lock a mutex during its init. Another thread will try to get that mutex (to be sure the init of the other thread is finished) and then get the mutex for the rest of the program runtime.
That is fine. There's no runtime cost with having the mutex. The OS will not time it out or anything. The challenge is a software engineering one: Make it clear, readable and understandable for the person that will have to maintain it. Apart from that, the architecture is really up to you.
I am trying to use read/write lock in C++ using shared_mutex
typedef boost::shared_mutex Lock;
typedef boost::unique_lock< Lock > WriteLock;
typedef boost::shared_lock< Lock > ReadLock;
class Test {
Lock lock;
WriteLock writeLock;
ReadLock readLock;
Test() : writeLock(lock), readLock(lock) {}
readFn1() {
readLock.lock();
/*
Some Code
*/
readLock.unlock();
}
readFn2() {
readLock.lock();
/*
Some Code
*/
readLock.unlock();
}
writeFn1() {
writeLock.lock();
/*
Some Code
*/
writeLock.unlock();
}
writeFn2() {
writeLock.lock();
/*
Some Code
*/
writeLock.unlock();
}
}
The code seems to be working fine but I have a few conceptual questions.
Q1. I have seen the recommendations to use unique_lock and shared_lock on http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/thread/shared_mutex/lock, but I don't understand why because shared_mutex already supports lock and lock_shared methods?
Q2. Does this code have the potential to cause write starvation? If yes then how can I avoid the starvation?
Q3. Is there any other locking class I can try to implement read write lock?
Q1: use of a mutex wrapper
The recommendation to use a wrapper object instead of managing the mutex directly is to avoid unfortunate situation where your code is interrupted and the mutex is not released, leaving it locked forever.
This is the principle of RAII.
But this only works if your ReadLock or WriteLock are local to the function using it.
Example:
readFn1() {
boost::unique_lock< Lock > rl(lock);
/*
Some Code
==> imagine exception is thrown
*/
rl.unlock(); // this is never reached if exception thrown
} // fortunately local object are destroyed automatically in case
// an excpetion makes you leave the function prematurely
In your code this won't work if one of the function is interupted, becaus your ReadLock WriteLock object is a member of Test and not local to the function setting the lock.
Q2: Write starvation
It is not fully clear how you will invoke the readers and the writers, but yes, there is a risk:
as long as readers are active, the writer is blocked by the unique_lock waiting for the mutex to be aquirable in exclusive mode.
however as long as the wrtier is waiting, new readers can obtain access to the shared lock, causing the unique_lock to be further delayed.
If you want to avoid starvation, you have to ensure that waiting writers do get the opportunity to set their unique_lock. For example att in your readers some code to check if a writer is waiting before setting the lock.
Q3 Other locking classes
Not quite sure what you're looking for, but I have the impression that condition_variable could be of interest for you. But the logic is a little bit different.
Maybe, you could also find a solution by thinking out of the box: perhaps there's a suitable lock-free data structure that could facilitate coexistance of readers and writers by changing slightly the approach ?
The types for the locks are ok but instead of having them as member functions create then inside the member functions locktype lock(mymutex). That way they are released on destruction even in the case of an exception.
Q1. I have seen the recommendations to use unique_lock and shared_lock on http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/thread/shared_mutex/lock, but I don't understand why because shared_mutex already supports lock and lock_shared methods?
Possibly because unique_lock has been around since c++11 but shared_lock is coming onboard with c++17. Also, [possibly] unique_lock can be more efficient. Here's the original rationale for shared_lock [by the creator] http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n2406.html and I defer to that.
Q2. Does this code have the potential to cause write starvation? If yes then how can I avoid the starvation?
Yes, absolutely. If you do:
while (1)
writeFn1();
You can end up with a time line of:
T1: writeLock.lock()
T2: writeLock.unlock()
T3: writeLock.lock()
T4: writeLock.unlock()
T5: writeLock.lock()
T6: writeLock.unlock()
...
The difference T2-T1 is arbitrary, based on amount of work being done. But, T3-T2 is near zero. This is the window for another thread to acquire the lock. Because the window is so small, it probably won't get it.
To solve this, the simplest method is to insert a small sleep (e.g. nanosleep) between T2 and T3. You could do this by adding it to the bottom of writeFn1.
Other methods can involve creating a queue for the lock. If a thread can't get the lock, it adds itself to a queue and the first thread on the queue gets the lock when the lock is released. In the linux kernel, this is implemented for a "queued spinlock"
Q3. Is there any other locking class I can try to implement read write lock?
While not a class, you could use pthread_mutex_lock and pthread_mutex_unlock. These implement recursive locks. You could add your own code to implement the equivalent of boost::scoped_lock. Your class can control the semantics.
Or, boost has its own locks.
If I have the following code:
#include <boost/date_time.hpp>
#include <boost/thread.hpp>
boost::shared_mutex g_sharedMutex;
void reader()
{
boost::shared_lock<boost::shared_mutex> lock(g_sharedMutex);
boost::this_thread::sleep(boost::posix_time::seconds(10));
}
void makeReaders()
{
while (1)
{
boost::thread ar(reader);
boost::this_thread::sleep(boost::posix_time::seconds(3));
}
}
boost::thread mr(makeReaders);
boost::this_thread::sleep(boost::posix_time::seconds(5));
boost::unique_lock<boost::shared_mutex> lock(g_sharedMutex);
...
the unique lock will never be acquired, because there are always going to be readers. I want a unique_lock that, when it starts waiting, prevents any new read locks from gaining access to the mutex (called a write-biased or write-preferred lock, based on my wiki searching). Is there a simple way to do this with boost? Or would I need to write my own?
Note that I won't comment on the win32 implementation because it's way more involved and I don't have the time to go through it in detail. That being said, it's interface is the same as the pthread implementation which means that the following answer should be equally valid.
The relevant pieces of the pthread implementation of boost::shared_mutex as of v1.51.0:
void lock_shared()
{
boost::this_thread::disable_interruption do_not_disturb;
boost::mutex::scoped_lock lk(state_change);
while(state.exclusive || state.exclusive_waiting_blocked)
{
shared_cond.wait(lk);
}
++state.shared_count;
}
void lock()
{
boost::this_thread::disable_interruption do_not_disturb;
boost::mutex::scoped_lock lk(state_change);
while(state.shared_count || state.exclusive)
{
state.exclusive_waiting_blocked=true;
exclusive_cond.wait(lk);
}
state.exclusive=true;
}
The while loop conditions are the most relevant part for you. For the lock_shared function (read lock), notice how the while loop will not terminate as long as there's a thread trying to acquire (state.exclusive_waiting_blocked) or already owns (state.exclusive) the lock. This essentially means that write locks have priority over read locks.
For the lock function (write lock), the while loop will not terminate as long as there's at least one thread that currently owns the read lock (state.shared_count) or another thread owns the write lock (state.exclusive). This essentially gives you the usual mutual exclusion guarantees.
As for deadlocks, well the read lock will always return as long as the write locks are guaranteed to be unlocked once they are acquired. As for the write lock, it's guaranteed to return as long as the read locks and the write locks are always guaranteed to be unlocked once acquired.
In case you're wondering, the state_change mutex is used to ensure that there's no concurrent calls to either of these functions. I'm not going to go through the unlock functions because they're a bit more involved. Feel free to look them over yourself, you have the source after all (boost/thread/pthread/shared_mutex.hpp) :)
All in all, this is pretty much a text book implementation and they've been extensively tested in a wide range of scenarios (libs/thread/test/test_shared_mutex.cpp and massive use across the industry). I wouldn't worry too much as long you use them idiomatically (no recursive locking and always lock using the RAII helpers). If you still don't trust the implementation, then you could write a randomized test that simulates whatever test case you're worried about and let it run overnight on hundreds of thread. That's usually a good way to tease out deadlocks.
Now why would you see that a read lock is acquired after a write lock is requested? Difficult to say without seeing the diagnostic code that you're using. Chances are that the read lock is acquired after your print statement (or whatever you're using) is completed and before state_change lock is acquired in the write thread.
I don't well understand the difference betweeen these two lock classes.
In boost documentation it is said, boost::unique_lock doesn't realize lock automatically.
Does it mean that the main difference between unique_lock and lock_guard is that with unique_lock we must call explicitly the lock() function ?
First to answer your question. No you don't need to call lock on a unique_lock. See below:
The unique_lock is only a lock class with more features. In most cases the lock_guard will do what you want and will be sufficient.
The unique_lock has more features to offer to you. E.g a timed wait if you need a timeout or if you want to defer your lock to a later point than the construction of the object. So it highly depends on what you want to do.
BTW: The following code snippets do the same thing.
boost::mutex mutex;
boost::lock_guard<boost::mutex> lock(mutex);
boost::mutex mutex;
boost::unique_lock<boost::mutex> lock(mutex);
The first one can be used to synchronize access to data, but if you want to use condition variables you need to go for the second one.
The currently best voted answer is good, but it did not clarify my doubt till I dug a bit deeper so decided to share with people who might be in the same boat.
Firstly both lock_guard and unique_lock follows the RAII pattern, in the simplest use case the lock is acquired during construction and unlocked during destruction automatically. If that is your use case then you don't need the extra flexibility of unique_lock and lock_guard will be more efficient.
The key difference between both is a unique_lock instance doesn't need to always own the mutex it is associated with while in lock_guard it owns the mutex. This means unique_lock would need to have an extra flag indicating whether it owns the lock and another extra method 'owns_lock()' to check that. Knowing this we can explain all extra benefits this flags brings with the overhead of that extra data to be set and checked
Lock doesn't have to taken right at the construction, you can pass the flag std::defer_lock during its construction to keep the mutex unlocked during construction.
We can unlock it before the function ends and don't have to necessarily wait for destructor to release it, which can be handy.
You can pass the ownership of the lock from a function, it is movable and not copyable.
It can be used with conditional variables since that requires mutex to be locked, condition checked and unlocked while waiting for a condition.
Their implementation can be found under path .../boost/thread/locks.hpp - and they are sitting just one next to other :) To sum things short:
lock_guard is a short simple utility class that locks mutex in constructor and unlocks in destructor, not caring about details.
unique_lock is a bit more complex one, adding pretty lot of features - but it still locks automatically in constructor. It is called unique_lock because it introduces "lock ownership" concept ( see owns_lock() method ).
If you're used to pthreads(3):
boost::mutex = pthread_mutex_*
boost::unique_lock = pthread_rwlock_* used to obtain write/exclusive locks (i.e. pthread_rwlock_wrlock)
boost::shared_lock = pthread_rwlock_* used to obtain read/shared locks (i.e. pthread_rwlock_rdlock)
Yes a boost::unique_lock and a boost::mutex function in similar ways, but a boost::mutex is generally a lighter weight mutex to acquire and release. That said, a shared_lock with the lock already acquired is faster (and allows for concurrency), but it's comparatively expensive to obtain a unique_lock.
You have to look under the covers to see the implementation details, but that's the gist of the intended differences.
Speaking of performance: here's a moderately useful comparison of latencies:
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/%7Ercs/research/interactive_latency.html
It would be nice if I/someone could benchmark the relative cost of the different pthread_* primitives, but last I looked, pthread_mutex_* was ~25us, whereas pthread_rwlock_* was ~20-100us depending on whether or not the read lock had been already acquired (~10us) or not (~20us) or writer (~100us). You'll have to benchmark to confirm current numbers and I'm sure it's very OS specific.
I think unique_lock may be also used when you need to emphasize the difference between unique and shared locks.