[Newbies] Re: Semaphore problems

Oscar Nierstrasz oscar.nierstrasz at gmail.com
Sun Sep 30 07:24:41 UTC 2007


Hi Folks,

I think the problem is that we have race conditions due to the fact  
that Transcript is not thread-safe (as pointed out by Matthew).  We  
can fix this either by making it thread-safe (using a mutex semaphore  
as suggested by Ron), or by simply enclosing our accesses to  
Transcript with a mutex.  This would allow Jason to safely experiment  
with the plain semaphores.

This now works the way we expect it to.

semA := Semaphore new.
semB := Semaphore new.
semT := Semaphore forMutualExclusion.

[	semT critical: [Transcript show: 'b1'; cr].
	semB signal.
	semA wait.
	semT critical: [Transcript show: 'b2'; cr]
] fork.
[	semT critical: [Transcript show: 'a1'; cr].
	semA signal.
	semB wait.
	semT critical: [Transcript show: 'a2'; cr]
] fork.

Oscar

On Sep 30, 2007, at 4:20, Ron Teitelbaum wrote:

> Hi Jason,
>
> I’m not really sure what you are trying to do but this works too.
>
> semA := Semaphore forMutualExclusion.
> semB := Semaphore new.
>
> [semA critical: [Transcript show: 'b1'; cr. semB signal. semA wait.].
>
> 	Transcript show: 'b2'; cr.
> 	semB signal.	
> ] fork.
> [semB critical: [Transcript show: 'a1'; cr. semA signal. semB wait.].
> 	Transcript show: 'a2'; cr.
> ] fork.
>
>
> Semaphore forMutualExclusion signals the semaphore so that you can  
> get into
> the first critical block.
>
> The critical block is what does the code blocking.
>
> SemB signal allows the second thread in while semA wait keeps the  
> block from
> exiting.
> Then semA signal allows the first block to continue, but semB wait  
> keeps the
> second block from exiting.
> Then semB signal allows the second block to continue, and since  
> both forked
> blocks complete they disappear.
>
> There are a lot of ways to make this easier, but I think it’s good  
> to look
> at these constructs closely, if you are planning to work with threads.
>
> Check out SharedQueue for thread safe processing.  Also have a look  
> at Mutex
> for other Semaphore behavior.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Ron Teitelbaum
> President / Principal Software Engineer
> US Medical Record Specialists
> www.USMedRec.com
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Jason Shoemaker
>
> This is probably a safer version.  It works for me.
>
> semA := Semaphore new.
> semB := Semaphore new.
>
> thread1 := [Transcript cr; nextPutAll: 'b1'. semB signal. semA wait.
>         Transcript cr; nextPutAll: 'b2'. ] fork.
> thread2 := [Transcript cr; nextPutAll: 'a1'. semA signal. semB wait.
>         Transcript cr; nextPutAll: 'a2'.] fork.
>
> [thread1 isTerminated and: [thread2 isTerminated]] whileFalse:
>     [(Delay forMilliseconds: 100) wait].
> Transcript flush
>
> Now to move on to another pattern.
>
> JTS
>
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