C++

In the previous article we looked inside the processor, even if it’s hypothetic. We have clarified that for the proper parallel code execution we should prompt the processor to what limits he is allowed to execute its internal read/write optimizations. These prompts are memory barriers. They allow regulating memory access to some extent (or rather the cache as the processor interacts with the outer world through cache only). The “weight” of such regulation can be different. Every architecture can provide the entire set of barriers “for choice”. Using these or those barriers we can build different memory models. It’s the set of warranties which will be executed for our programs.

In the article we’ll talk about C++11 memory model.

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Definition

Parallel programming is difficult. When using systems with common memory, you can’t go without synchronization of parallel processes/threads access to the common resource (memory). The following are used for it:

• locks (mutex);
• lock-free algorithms (lockless);
• transactional memory.

Transactional memory is a technology of concurrent threads synchronization. It simplifies the parallel programming by extracting instruction groups to atomic transactions. Concurrent threads operate paralleled till they start to modify the same memory chunk. For example, operations of nodes adding to the red/black tree (animation in the heading) can operate in parallel in several threads.

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Lock-free data structures are based on two things – atomic operations and methods of memory access regulation. In this article I will refer to atomicity and atomic primitives.

To begin with, I would like to thank you for a warm welcome of Lock-free Data Structures. 1 — Introduction. I can see that lock-free topic is interesting and it makes me glad. I planned to build a series according to academic concept, flowing from basics to algorithms, at the same time illustrating the text with the code from libcds. But part of the readers wants me to show them, without any delays and rambling on, how to use the library. I agree that there is some reason in it. After all, it’s not interesting for me either to know what is inside the boost, — and how to apply it! So I will divide my epic series into three parts: Basics, Inside and From Outside. Each article of the epic will refer to one of the parts. In the Basics I will tell about the low-level things, even about modern CPUs build. This part is for the whyers like me. In the Inside part I will cover interesting algorithms and methods of the lock-free world – it’s more likely a theory about how to implement a lock-free data structure. Libcds will be an endless source of the C++ code. From Outside will contain articles on libcds implementation practice, — programming solutions, advice and FAQ. From Outside is fed by the readers’ questions, comment, offers.

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Dear %username%,

I would like to share with you my first-hand experience in creating a Website on CppCMS (library-template engine on C++). It can also be named as “help for beginners on CppCMS”.

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I hope that this article will give a good start for a series of notes about lock-free data structures. I would like to share my experience with community, monitoring and thoughts about what lock-free structures are, how to implement them and whether the concepts of Standard Template Library (STL) containers are suitable for the lock-free containers, and when its worth to apply lock-free data structures.

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