Thursday, February 18, 2010

Dynamic lock-free queue – doing it right

Some history required …
First there was a good idea with somewhat patchy implementation: Three steps to the blocking collection: [2] Dynamically allocated queue.
Then there was a partial solution, depending on me being able to solve another problem. Still, it was a good solution: Releasing queue memory without the MREW lock.
At the end, the final (actually, the original) problem was also solved: Bypassing the ABA problem.
And now to the results …

This article describes a lock-free, (nearly) O(1) insert/remove, dynamically allocated queue that doesn’t require garbage collector. It can be implemented on any hardware that supports 8-byte compare-and-swap operation (in Intel world, that means at least a Pentium). The code uses 8-byte atomic move in some parts but they can be easily changed into 8-byte CAS in case the platform doesn’t support such operation. In the current implementation, Move64 (8-byte move) function uses SSE2 instructions and therefore requires Pentium 4. The code, however, can be conditionally compiled with CAS64 instead of Move64 thus enabling it to run on Pentium 1 to 3. (See the notes in the code for more information). The code requires memory manager that allows the memory to be released in a thread different from the thread where allocation occurred. [Obviously, Windows on Intel platform satisfies all conditions.]
Although the dynamic queue has been designed with the OmniThreadLibrary (OTL for short) in mind, there’s also a small sample implementation that doesn’t depend on the OTL: GpLockFreeQueue.pas. This implementation can store int64 elements only (or everything you can cast into 8 bytes) while the OTL implementation from OtlContainers stores TOmniValue data. [The latter being a kind of variant record used inside the OTL to store “anything” from a byte to a string/wide string/object/interface.] Because of that, GpLockFreeQueue implementation is smaller, faster, but slightly more limited. Both are released under the BSD license.

Memory layout

Data is stored in slots. Each slot uses 16 bytes and contains byte-size tag, word-size offset and up to 13 bytes of data. The implementation in OtlContainers uses all of those 13 bytes to store TOmniValue while the implementation in GpLockFreeQueue uses only 8 bytes and keeps the rest unused.
The following notation is used to represent a slot: [tag|offset|value].
In reality, value field is first in the record because it must be 4-aligned. The reason for that will be revealed in a moment. In GpLockFreeQueue, a slot is defined as:
  TGpLFQueueTaggedValue = packed record
    Value   : int64;
    Tag     : TGpLFQueueTag;
    Offset  : word;
    Stuffing: array [1..5] of byte;
  end; { TGpLFQueueTaggedValue }
Slots do not stand by themselves; they are allocated in blocks. Default block size if 64 KB (4096 slots) but can be varied from 64 bytes (four slots) to 1 MB (65536 slots). In this article, I’ll be using 5-slot blocks, as they are big enough to demonstrate all the nooks and crannies of the algorithm and small enough to fit in one line of text.
During the allocation, each block is formatted as follows:
[Header|0|4] [Sentinel|1|0] [Free|2|0] [Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
The first slot is marked as a Header and has the value field initialized to “number of slots in the block minus one”. [The highest value that can be stored in the header’s value field is 65535; therefore the maximum number of slots in a block is 65536.] This value is atomically decremented each time a slot is dequeued. When the number drops to zero, block can be released. (More on that in: Releasing queue memory without the MREW lock.) InterlockedDecrement, which is used to decrement this value, requires its argument to be 4-aligned and that’s the reason for the value field to be stored first in the slot.
The second slot is a Sentinel. Slots from the third onwards are tagged Free and are used to store data. The last slot is tagged EndOfList and is used to link two blocks. All slots have the offset field initialized to the sequence number of the slot – in the Header this value is 0, in the Sentinel 1, and so on up to the EnndOfList with the value set to 4 (number of slots in the block minus 1). This value is used in the Dequeue to calculate the address of the header slot just before the header’s value is decremented.
In addition to dynamically allocated (and released) memory blocks, the queue uses head and tail tagged pointers. Both are 8-byte values, consisting of two 4-byte fields – slot and tag. The following notation is used to represent a tagged pointer: [slot|tag].
The slot field contains the address of the current head/tail slot while the tag field contains the tag of the current slot. The motivation behind this scheme is explained in the Bypassing the ABA problem post.
Tail and head pointers are modified using 8-byte CAS and Move commands and must therefore be 8-aligned.
By putting all that together, we get a snapshot of the queue state. This is the initial state of a queue with five-slot blocks:
Head:[B1:2|Free]
Tail:[B1:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] H:[Free|2|0] [Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
The memory block begins at address B1 and contains five slots, initialized as described before. The tail pointer points to the second slot of block B1 (B1:1; I’m using the form address:offset), which is tagged Sentinel and the head pointer points to the third block (B1:2), the first Free slot. Here we see the sole reason for the Sentinel – it stands between the tail and the head when the queue is empty.

Enqueue

In theory, the enqueue operation is simple. The element is stored in the next available slot and queue head is advanced. In practice, however, multithreading makes things much more complicated.
To prevent thread conflicts, each enqueueing thread must first take ownership of the head. It does this by swapping queue head tag from Free to Allocating or from EndOfList to Extending. To prevent ABA problems, both head pointer and head tag are swapped with the same head pointer and new tag in one atomic 8-byte compare-and-swap.
Enqueue then does its work and at the end swaps (head pointer, tag) to (next head pointer, Free|EndOfList) which allows other threads to proceed with their enqueue operation.
Let’s start with the empty list.
Head:[B1:2|Free]
Tail:[B1:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] H:[Free|2|0] [Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
Enqueue first swaps [B1:2|Free] with [B1:2|Allocating].
Head:[B1:2|Allocating]
Tail:[B1:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] H:[Free|2|0] [Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
The green colour indicates an atomic change.
Only the head tag has changed, the data in the B1 memory block is not modified. Head still points to a slot tagged Free (slot B1:2). This is fine as enqueueing threads don’t take interest in this tag at all.
Data is then stored in the slot and its tag is changed to Allocated. This again makes no change to enqueuers as the head slot in the header was not updated yet. It also doesn’t allow the dequeue operation on this slot to proceed because the head is adjacent to the tail, which points to a Sentinel and in this case Dequeue treats the queue as empty (as we’ll see later).
Head:[B1:2|Allocating]
Tail:[B1:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] H:[Allocated|2|42] [Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
Red colour marks “unsafe” modification.
At the end, the head is unlocked by storing address of the next slot (first free slot, B1:3) and next slot’s tag (Free).
Head:[B1:3|Free]
Tail:[B1:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] H:[Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
Teal colour marks an atomic 8-byte move used to move new data into the head pointer. If the target platform doesn’t support such move, an 8-byte CAS could be used instead.
After those changes, head is pointing to the next free slot and data is stored in the queue.
Let’s assume that another Enqueue is called and stores number 17 in the queue. Nothing new happens here.
Head:[B1:4|EndOfList]
Tail:[B1:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] H:[EndOfList|4|0]
The next Enqueue must do something new as there are no free slots in the current block. To extend the queue, thread first swaps the EndOfList tag with the Extending tag. By doing this, the thread takes ownership of the queue head.
Head:[B1:4|Extending]
Tail:[B1:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] H:[EndOfList|4|0]
A new block gets allocated and initialized (see chapter on memory management, below).
Head:[B1:4|Extending]
Tail:[B1:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] H:[EndOfList|4|0]
B2:[Header|0|4] [Sentinel|1|0] [Free|2|0] [Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
Data is stored in the first free slot of the block B2.
Head:[B1:4|Extending]
Tail:[B1:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] H:[EndOfList|4|0]
B2:[Header|0|4] [Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|57] [Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
Last slot of block B1 is modified to point to the first element in the second slot of the next block (Sentinel). Also, a tag BlockPointer is stored into that slot.
Head:[B1:4|Extending]
Tail:[B1:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] H:[BlockPointer|4|B2:1]
B2:[Header|0|4] [Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|57] [Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
At the end, the head is updated to point to the first free slot (B2:3).
Head:[B2:3|Free]
Tail:[B1:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] [BlockPointer|4|B2:1]
B2:[Header|0|4] [Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|57] H:[Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
That completes the Enqueue. List head is now unlocked.
The actual code is not more complicated than this description (code taken from GpLockFreeQueue).
procedure TGpLockFreeQueue.Enqueue(const value: int64);
var
  extension: PGpLFQueueTaggedValue;
  next     : PGpLFQueueTaggedValue;
  head     : PGpLFQueueTaggedValue;
begin
  repeat
    head := obcHeadPointer.Slot;
    if (obcHeadPointer.Tag = tagFree)
       and CAS64(head, Ord(tagFree), head, Ord(tagAllocating), obcHeadPointer^)
    then
      break //repeat
    else if (obcHeadPointer.Tag = tagEndOfList)
            and CAS64(head, Ord(tagEndOfList), head, Ord(tagExtending), obcHeadPointer^)
    then
      break //repeat
    else  // very temporary condition, retry quickly
      asm pause; end;
  until false;
  if obcHeadPointer.Tag = tagAllocating then begin // enqueueing
    next := NextSlot(head);
    head.Value := value;
    head.Tag := tagAllocated;
    Move64(next, Ord(next.Tag), obcHeadPointer^); // release the lock
  end
  else begin // allocating memory
    extension := AllocateBlock; // returns pointer to the header
    Inc(extension, 2);          // move over header and sentinel to the first data slot
    extension.Tag := tagAllocated;
    extension.Value := value;
    Dec(extension);             // forward reference points to the sentinel
    head.Value := int64(extension);
    head.Tag := tagBlockPointer;
    Inc(extension, 2); // get to the first free slot
    Move64(extension, Ord(extension.Tag), obcHeadPointer^); // release the lock
    PreallocateMemory; // preallocate memory block
  end;
end; { TGpLockFreeQueue.Enqueue }

Dequeue

Enqueue is simple but Dequeue is a whole new bag of problems. It has to handle the Sentinel slot and because of that there are five possible scenarios:
  1. Skip the sentinel.
  2. Read the data (tail doesn’t catch the head).
  3. Read the data (tail does catch the head).
  4. The queue is empty.
  5. Follow the BlockPointer tag.
To prevent thread conflicts, dequeueing thread takes ownership of the tail. It does this by swapping the tail tag from Allocated or Sentinel to Removing or from BlockPointer to Destroying. Again, those changes are done atomically by swapping both tail pointer and tail tag in one go.
Let’s walk through all five scenarios now.
1 – Skip the sentinel
Let’s start with a queue state where two slots are allocated and head points to the EndOfList slot.
Head:[B1:4|EndOfList]
Tail:
[B1:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] H:[EndOfList|4|0]
The code first locks the tail.
Head:[B1:4|EndOfList]
Tail:[B1:1|Removing]
B1:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] H:[EndOfList|4|0]
As there is no data in the Sentinel slot, the tail is immediately updated to point to the next slot.
Head:[B1:4|EndOfList]
Tail:[B1:2|Allocated]
B1:[Header|0|4] [Sentinel|1|0] T:[Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] H:[EndOfList|4|0]
There’s no need to update the tag in slot 1 as no other thread can reach it again. Because the slot is now unreachable, the code now decrements the count in the B1’s Header slot (from 4 to 3).
Head:[B1:4|EndOfList]
Tail:
[B1:2|Allocated]
B1:[Header|0|3] [Sentinel|1|0] T:[Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] H:[EndOfList|4|0]
Because the original tag was Sentinel, the code retries from beginning immediately. The queue is now in scenario 2 (data, the tail is not immediately before the head).
2 - Read the data (tail doesn’t catch the head)
Again, the tail is locked.
Head:[B1:4|EndOfList]
Tail:[B1:2|Removing]
B1:[Header|0|3] [Sentinel|1|0] T:[Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] H:[EndOfList|4|0]
The code then reads the value from the slot (42) and advances the tail to the slot B1:3.
Head:[B1:4|EndOfList]
Tail:[B1:3|Allocated]
B1:[Header|0|3] [Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] T:[Allocated|3|17] H:[EndOfList|4|0]
Again, there is no need to change the slot tag. The slot 2 is now unreachable and the Header count is decremented.
Head:[B1:4|EndOfList]
Tail:
[B1:3|Allocated]
B1:[Header|0|2] [Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] T:[Allocated|3|17] H:[EndOfList|4|0]
The code has retrieved the data and can now return from the Dequeue method.
3 - Read the data (tail does catch the head)
If the Dequeue is now called for the second time, we have the scenario 3 – there is data in the queue, but the head pointer is next to the tail pointer. Because of the, the tail cannot be incremented. Instead of that, the code replaces the tail slot tag with the Sentinel.
It is entirely possible that the head will change the very next moment which means that the Sentinel would not be really needed. Luckily, that doesn’t hurt much – the next Dequeue would skip the Sentinel, retry and fetch the next element from the queue.
The code starts in a well-known manner, by taking ownership of the tail.
Head:[B1:4|EndOfList]
Tail:[B1:3|Removing]
B1:[Header|0|2] [Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] T:[Allocated|3|17] H:[EndOfList|4|0]
 
The code then reads the value from the slot, but because the head was next to tail when Dequeue was called, the code doesn’t increment the tail and doesn’t decrement the Header counter. Instead of that, the Sentinel tag is put into the head tag.
Head:[B1:4|EndOfList]
Tail:
[B1:3|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|2] [Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] T:[Allocated|3|17] H:[EndOfList|4|0]
 
It doesn’t matter that the slot tag is still Allocated as no-one will read it again.
4 - The queue is empty
If the Dequeue would be called now, it would return immediately with status empty because the tail tag is Sentinel and because the tail has caught the head.
5 - Follow the BlockPointer tag
In the last scenario, the tail is pointing to a BlockPointer.
Head:[B2:3|Free]
Tail:[B1:4|EndOfList]
B1:[Header|0|1] [Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] T:[BlockPointer|4|B2:1]
B2:[Header|0|4] [Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|57] H:[Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
As expected, the code first takes the ownership of the tail.
Head:[B2:3|Free]
Tail:[B1:4|Destroying]
B1:[Header|0|1] [Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] T:[BlockPointer|4|B2:1]
B2:[Header|0|4] [Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|57] H:[Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
We know that the first slot in the next block is Sentinel. We also know that the head is not pointing to this slot because that’s how Enqueue works (when new block is allocated, head points to the first slot after the Sentinel.). Therefore, it is safe to update the tail to point to the Sentinel slot of the B2 block.
Head:[B2:3|Free]
Tail:[B2:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|1] [Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] [BlockPointer|4|B2:1]
B2:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|57] H:[Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
By doing the swap, the ownership of the tail is released.
The Header count is then decremented.
Head:[B2:3|Free]
Tail:[B2:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|0] [Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] [BlockPointer|4|B2:1]
B2:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|57] H:[Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
Because the count is now zero, the code destroys the B1 block. (Note that the Header count decrement is atomic and only one thread can actually reach the zero.) While the block is being destroyed, other threads may be calling Dequeue.
Head:[B2:3|Free]
Tail:[B2:1|Sentinel]
B1:[Header|0|0] [Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|42] [Allocated|3|17] [BlockPointer|4|B2:1] B2:[Header|0|4] T:[Sentinel|1|0] [Allocated|2|57] H:[Free|3|0] [EndOfList|4|0]
Because the tail tag was originally BlockPointer, the code retries immediately and continues with the scenario 1.
The actual code is tricky because some of the code path is shared between scenarios (code taken from GpLockFreeQueue).
function TGpLockFreeQueue.Dequeue(var value: int64): boolean;
var
  caughtTheHead: boolean;
  tail         : PGpLFQueueTaggedValue;
  header       : PGpLFQueueTaggedValue;
  next         : PGpLFQueueTaggedValue;
  tag          : TGpLFQueueTag;
begin
  tag := tagSentinel;
  Result := true;
  while Result and (tag = tagSentinel) do begin
    repeat
      tail := obcTailPointer.Slot;
      caughtTheHead := NextSlot(obcTailPointer.Slot) = obcHeadPointer.Slot; 
      if (obcTailPointer.Tag = tagAllocated)
         and CAS64(tail, Ord(tagAllocated), tail, Ord(tagRemoving), obcTailPointer^) then
      begin
        tag := tagAllocated;
        break; //repeat
      end
      else if (obcTailPointer.Tag = tagSentinel) then begin
        if caughtTheHead then begin
          Result := false;
          break; //repeat
        end
        else if CAS64(tail, Ord(tagSentinel), tail, Ord(tagRemoving), obcTailPointer^) then begin
          tag := tagSentinel;
          break; //repeat
        end
      end
      else if (obcTailPointer.Tag = tagBlockPointer)
              and CAS64(tail, Ord(tagBlockPointer), tail, Ord(tagDestroying), obcTailPointer^) then
      begin
        tag := tagBlockPointer;
        break; //repeat
      end
      else
        asm pause; end;
    until false;
    if Result then begin // dequeueing
      header := tail;
      Dec(header, header.Offset);
      if tag in [tagSentinel, tagAllocated] then begin
        next := NextSlot(tail);
        if tag = tagAllocated then // sentinel doesn't contain any useful value
          value := tail.Value;
        if caughtTheHead then begin  // release the lock; as this is the last element, don't move forward
          Move64(tail, Ord(tagSentinel), obcTailPointer^);
          header := nil; // do NOT decrement the counter; this slot will be retagged again
        end
        else
          Move64(next, Ord(next.Tag), obcTailPointer^); // release the lock
      end
      else begin // releasing memory
        next := PGpLFQueueTaggedValue(tail.Value); // next points to the sentinel
        Move64(next, Ord(tagSentinel), obcTailPointer^); // release the lock
        tag := tagSentinel; // retry
      end;
      if assigned(header) and (InterlockedDecrement(PInteger(header)^) = 0) then
        ReleaseBlock(header);
    end;
  end; //while Result and (tag = tagSentinel)
end; { TGpLockFreeQueue.Dequeue }

Memory management

In the dynamic queue described above, special consideration goes to memory allocation and deallocation because most of the time that will be the slowest part of the enqueue/dequeue.
Memory is always released after the queue tail is unlocked. That way, other threads may dequeue from the same queue while the thread is releasing the memory.
The allocation is trickier, because the Enqueue only knows that it will need the memory after the head is locked. The trick here is to use one preallocated memory block which is reused inside the Enqueue. This is much faster than calling the allocator. After the head is unlocked, Enqueue preallocates next block of memory. This will slow down the current thread, but will not block other threads from enqueueing into the same queue.
Dequeue also tries to help with that. If the preallocated block is not present when a block must be released, Dequeue will store the released block away for the next Enqueue to use.
Also, there's one such block preallocated when the queue is initially created.
If this explanation is unclear, look at the program flow below. It describes the code flow through the Enqueue that has to allocate a memory block and through the Dequeue that has to release a memory block. Identifiers in parenthesis represent methods listed below.
Enqueue:
  • lock the head
  • detect EndOfList
  • use the cached block if available, otherwise allocate a new block (AllocateBlock)
  • unlock the head
  • if there is no cached block, allocate new block and store it away (PreallocateMemory)
Dequeue:
  • lock the tail
  • process last slot in the block
  • unlock the tail
  • decrement the header count
  • as the header count has dropped to zero:
    • if the cached block is empty, store this one away (ReleaseBlock)
    • otherwise release the block
All manipulations with the cached block are done atomically. All allocations are optimistic – if the preallocated block is empty, new memory block is allocated, partitioned and only then the code tries to swap it into the preallocated block variable. If compare-and-swap fails at this point, other thread went through the same routine, just slightly faster, and the allocated (and partitioned) block is thrown away. Looks like there may be quite some work done in vain but in reality the preallocated block is rarely thrown away.
It tested other, more complicated schemes (for example small 4-slot stack) but they invariably behaved worse than this simple approach.
function TGpLockFreeQueue.AllocateBlock: PGpLFQueueTaggedValue;
var
  cached: PGpLFQueueTaggedValue;
begin
  cached := obcCachedBlock;
  if assigned(cached) and CAS32(cached, nil, obcCachedBlock) then
    Result := cached
  else begin
    Result := AllocMem(obcBlockSize);
    PartitionMemory(Result);
  end;
end; { TGpLockFreeQueue.AllocateBlock }

procedure TGpLockFreeQueue.PreallocateMemory;
var
  memory: PGpLFQueueTaggedValue;
begin
  if not assigned(obcCachedBlock) then begin
    memory := AllocMem(obcBlockSize);
    PartitionMemory(memory);
    if not CAS32(nil, memory, obcCachedBlock) then
      FreeMem(memory);
  end;
end; { TGpLockFreeQueue.PreallocateMemory }
procedure TGpLockFreeQueue.ReleaseBlock(firstSlot: PGpLFQueueTaggedValue; forceFree: boolean);
begin
  if forceFree or assigned(obcCachedBlock) then
    FreeMem(firstSlot)
  else begin
    ZeroMemory(firstSlot, obcBlockSize);
    PartitionMemory(firstSlot);
    if not CAS32(nil, firstSlot, obcCachedBlock) then
      FreeMem(firstSlot);
  end;
end; { TGpLockFreeQueue.ReleaseBlock }
As you can see in the code fragments above, memory is also initialized (formatted into slots) when memory is allocated. This also helps with the general performance.

Performance

Tests were again performed using the 32_Queue project in the Tests branch of the OTL tree.
The test framework sets up the following data path:
source queue –> N threads –> channel queue –> M threads –> destination queue
Source queue is filled with numbers from 1 to 1.000.000. Then 1 to 8 threads are set up to read from the source queue and write into the channel queue and another 1 to 8 threads are set up to read from the channel queue and write to the destination queue. Application then starts the clock and starts all threads. When all numbers are moved to the destination queue, clock is stopped and contents of the destination queue are verified. Thread creation time is not included in the measured time.
All in all this results in 2 million reads and 2 million writes distributed over three queues. Tests are very brutal as all threads are just hammering on the queues, doing nothing else. The table below contains average, min and max time of 5 runs on a 2.67 GHz computer with two 4-core CPUs. Data from the current implementation ("new code") is compared to the original implementation ("old code"). Best times are marked green.
New code
average [min-max] all data in milliseconds millions of queue operations per second
N = 1, M = 1 590 [559 – 682] 6.78
N = 2, M = 2 838 [758 – 910] 4.77
N = 3, M = 3 1095 [1054 – 1173] 3.65
N = 4, M = 4 1439 [1294 – 1535] 2.78
N = 8, M = 8 1674 [1303 – 2217] 2.39
N = 1, M = 7 1619 [1528 – 1822] 2.47
N = 7, M = 1 1525 [1262 – 1724] 2.62
Old Code
average [min-max]all data in milliseconds millions of queue operations per second
N = 1, M = 1 707 [566-834] 5.66
N = 2, M = 2 996 [950-1031] 4.02
N = 3, M = 3 1065 [1055-1074] 3.76
N = 4, M = 4 1313 [1247-1358] 3.04
N = 8, M = 8 1520 [1482-1574] 2.63
N = 1, M = 7 3880 [3559-4152] 1.03
N = 7, M = 1 1314 [1299-1358] 3.04

The new implementation is faster when less threads are used and slightly slower when number of threads increases. The best thing is that there is no weird speed drop in N = 1, M = 7 case. The small slowdown with higher number of threads doesn't bother me much as this test case really stresses the queue. In all practical applications, there should be much more code that does real work and queue load would rapidly drop down.
If your code depends on accessing a shared queue from many multiple threads that enqueue/dequeue most of the time, there's a simple solution - change the code! I believe that multithreaded code should not fight for each data, but cooperate. A possible solution is to split the data in packets and schedule packets to the shared queue. Each thread would then dequeue one packet and process all data stored within.

Wrapup

The code will be released in OmniThreadLibrary 1.5 (but you can use it already if you fetch the HEAD from the SVN). It passed very rigorous stress test and I believe it is working. If you find any problems, please let me know. I’m also interested in any ports to different languages (a C version would be nice).

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous19:42

    Super!

    Any idea when OTL 1.5 will be released?

    I'm about to begin a major refactoring of a project using OTL 1.3. I'm wondering if I should wait until OTL 1.5 is out.

    ps

    Your wife should take you to concerts more often.

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  2. OTL 1.5 will be released really really soon now ;)

    Most probably it will be released some time next week.

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  3. Thanks for this Queue Gabr.

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  4. I find it weird that you call the state in which you're enqueueing a value 'tagAllocating, while the state in which you're allocating a new block is called 'tagExtending'. Rephrasing that could help in making the code more understandable.

    Also, you're explanation says that when extending, the EndOfList slot's value is changed to point to the new block address. But you're code makes it point to the address of the sentinel-slot in the new block... could you explain what's going on there?

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  5. RE naming: Tags were named from the viewpoint of the slot function. When the slot is a data slot, it goes through the following cycle: free -> allocating -> allocated -> removing (-> sentinel). When the slot is a terminal slot in the block, it goes through the following cycle: endOfList -> extending -> blockPointer -> destroying. I think this is reasonable enough.

    RE endOfList: The code is correct. The text is not. I'll fix the text, thanks for the warning!

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  6. Can't you just use FISTP for atomic 64bit move? According to Intel it's guaranteed atomic (if 8byte aligned) since the Pentium.

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  7. I suppose I could. I don't know how that would affect the speed, though. The current method was chosen by our assembler expert.

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