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Deriving linearizable fine-grained concurrent objects

Published:07 June 2008Publication History
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Abstract

Practical and efficient algorithms for concurrent data structures are difficult to construct and modify. Algorithms in the literature are often optimized for a specific setting, making it hard to separate the algorithmic insights from implementation details. The goal of this work is to systematically construct algorithms for a concurrent data structure starting from its sequential implementation. Towards that goal, we follow a construction process that combines manual steps corresponding to high-level insights with automatic exploration of implementation details. To assist us in this process, we built a new tool called Paraglider. The tool quickly explores large spaces of algorithms and uses bounded model checking to check linearizability of algorithms.

Starting from a sequential implementation and assisted by the tool, we present the steps that we used to derive various highly-concurrent algorithms. Among these algorithms is a new fine-grained set data structure that provides a wait-free contains operation, and uses only the compare-and-swap (CAS) primitive for synchronization.

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      • Published in

        cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices
        ACM SIGPLAN Notices  Volume 43, Issue 6
        PLDI '08
        June 2008
        382 pages
        ISSN:0362-1340
        EISSN:1558-1160
        DOI:10.1145/1379022
        Issue’s Table of Contents
        • cover image ACM Conferences
          PLDI '08: Proceedings of the 29th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation
          June 2008
          396 pages
          ISBN:9781595938602
          DOI:10.1145/1375581
          • General Chair:
          • Rajiv Gupta,
          • Program Chair:
          • Saman Amarasinghe

        Copyright © 2008 ACM

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        Association for Computing Machinery

        New York, NY, United States

        Publication History

        • Published: 7 June 2008

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