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Groups > comp.unix.programmer > #730

Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types

From Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com>
Newsgroups comp.unix.programmer
Subject Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types
Date 2011-06-03 15:19 +0100
Message-ID <87tyc7vvyv.fsf@sapphire.mobileactivedefense.com> (permalink)
References (1 earlier) <c9ab1037-b921-4f0a-adef-1f79828ab89e@y27g2000prb.googlegroups.com> <87r57ccynl.fsf@sapphire.mobileactivedefense.com> <b8e63d87-1e4c-4157-9f90-aa4af98300f6@17g2000prr.googlegroups.com> <87aae0dvij.fsf@sapphire.mobileactivedefense.com> <a85ed907-c3c3-4861-b519-848f1306a126@z15g2000prn.googlegroups.com>

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Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> writes:
> On Jun 2, 9:54 am, Rainer Weikusat <rweiku...@mssgmbh.com> wrote:

[...]

>> For instance, assuming that a platform for single-word memory accesses
>> are atomic provided they are correctly aligned is being used and that
>> a compiler actually aligns them correctly (which, for all practical
>> purposes, means 'assuming that a computer and a C compiler are being
>> used') and the following code snippet
>>
>>         static int b;
>>
>>         while (!b);
>>         printf("b is now %d\n", b);
>>
>> was being executed by one thread of a multi-threaded program and some
>> other thread will eventually modify b, the declaration really ought to
>> be
>>
>>         static volatile int b;
>>
>> in order to inform the compiler that the code above is not
>> semantically equivalent to
>>
>>              while (1);
>>
>> because of 'something' (this is actually the 'volatile sig_atomic_t'
>> signal handler case in disguise).
>
> Yes, you should do that if you want to write a program with undefined
> behavior.

For the situation I gave (which is virtually identical to 'the
situation'), this program will execute the while-loop until the change
to variable done by one thread (or 'the signal handler') is noticed by
the thread executing the loop. The behaviours isn't defined by any of
the possibly applicable standards because these are meant to be less
restrictive wrt platforms which can be used to implement
them. Especially, sig_atomic_t is a typedef name and this implies that
some native type which can safely be used in place of sig_atomic_t
must exist. Practically, this type will be 'int' because int is
supposed to be 'the most natural integer type for the architecture'
and correctly aligned single-world loads are atomic (actually, it
wouldn't even matter if they weren't atomic because the test is just
'is the value != 0').

> That program has a race condition under POSIX pthreads and
> under C++0x, and according to either standard, a program with a race
> condition has undefined behavior. Volatile does nothing to change
> that.

A 'race condition' is defined as 'code whose effects change, depending
on the order in which several threads do specific things, but without
any ordering explicitly imposed'. And there is no 'race condition' in
this example.

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Thread

threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Urs Thuermann <urs@isnogud.escape.de> - 2011-05-31 21:07 +0200
  Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Xavier Roche <xroche@free.fr.NOSPAM.invalid> - 2011-05-31 22:44 +0200
    Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-01 11:58 +0100
      Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Xavier Roche <xroche@free.fr.NOSPAM.invalid> - 2011-06-01 14:15 +0200
        Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Xavier Roche <xroche@free.fr.NOSPAM.invalid> - 2011-06-02 13:49 +0200
          Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-02 13:40 +0100
  Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2011-05-31 22:50 +0100
  Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-05-31 21:32 -0400
    Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-01 12:35 +0100
      Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-06-01 23:01 -0400
        Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-02 11:22 +0100
          Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-06-02 07:52 -0400
            Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-02 13:38 +0100
              Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-06-02 21:27 -0400
  Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> - 2011-06-01 12:55 -0700
    Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-01 22:54 +0100
      Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Alex Fraser <me@privacy.net> - 2011-06-02 21:00 +0100
        Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> - 2011-06-04 21:53 -0700
          Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-05 16:39 +0100
            Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> - 2011-06-06 18:48 -0700
              Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-06-07 06:50 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> - 2011-06-07 06:04 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-06-07 22:48 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-07 23:18 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types gordonb.lhpq6@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) - 2011-06-07 18:28 -0500
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-08 11:09 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-08 14:32 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> - 2011-06-09 18:10 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-10 15:26 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types James Waldby <not@valid.invalid> - 2011-06-10 16:49 +0000
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-10 19:07 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-10 13:13 -0700
              Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-07 12:55 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> - 2011-06-07 06:02 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-07 16:05 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-07 13:37 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2011-06-14 21:43 +0000
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-06-15 03:07 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-15 10:22 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Casper H.S. Dik <Casper.Dik@OrSPaMcle.COM> - 2011-06-15 09:40 +0000
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-15 13:20 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Casper H.S. Dik <Casper.Dik@OrSPaMcle.COM> - 2011-06-15 13:19 +0000
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-06-15 17:41 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> - 2011-06-15 20:20 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-06-15 17:31 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-15 18:31 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-15 13:32 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-15 22:19 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-06-16 05:02 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-14 23:23 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-15 10:12 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-15 02:53 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> - 2011-06-08 10:19 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-10 16:50 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> - 2011-06-15 20:24 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-16 22:11 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-17 04:43 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Michael Press <rubrum@pacbell.net> - 2011-06-19 01:43 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-19 13:35 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-19 17:06 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2011-06-20 16:22 +0000
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-20 19:16 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2011-06-21 17:30 +0000
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-21 13:02 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-20 14:32 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2011-06-21 17:05 +0000
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-19 17:01 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Michael Press <rubrum@pacbell.net> - 2011-06-22 01:55 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-22 03:36 -0700
      Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> - 2011-06-02 21:53 -0700
      Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> - 2011-06-03 04:24 -0700
      Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-06-03 07:52 -0400
  Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types "Ersek, Laszlo" <lacos@caesar.elte.hu> - 2011-06-02 00:23 +0200
    Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-01 20:11 -0700
      Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types "Ersek, Laszlo" <lacos@caesar.elte.hu> - 2011-06-02 22:54 +0200
        Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-02 14:03 -0700
          Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types "Ersek, Laszlo" <lacos@caesar.elte.hu> - 2011-06-03 02:49 +0200
            Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-02 17:54 -0700
              Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2011-06-02 21:36 -0400
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-03 16:25 +0100
            Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types "Ersek, Laszlo" <lacos@caesar.elte.hu> - 2011-06-03 03:12 +0200
  Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types "Ersek, Laszlo" <lacos@caesar.elte.hu> - 2011-06-02 00:45 +0200
    Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-02 11:26 +0100
      Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Alex Fraser <me@privacy.net> - 2011-06-02 21:05 +0100
  Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-01 20:21 -0700
    Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-02 11:31 +0100
      Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-02 09:12 -0700
        Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-02 17:54 +0100
          Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-02 14:00 -0700
            Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-03 15:19 +0100
              Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-03 15:50 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-05 16:46 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-05 15:28 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-06 13:35 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-06 09:19 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-06 09:26 -0700
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2011-06-07 09:43 +1200
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-07 13:29 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2011-06-08 09:04 +1200
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-08 12:34 +0100
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2011-06-09 07:37 +1200
                Re: threads, signals, and atomicity of basic types Joshua Maurice <joshuamaurice@gmail.com> - 2011-06-07 14:55 -0700

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