How can I make an efficient First-Come-First-Serve locking mechani

[Chris Tanger]

I am creating a class that has a method "Write" that I wish to make threadsafe. The method must block calling threads until the task performed in write is complete. Only 1 thread at a time can perform the task within "Write". 1-10 different threads may call "Write" simultaneously and continuously, some in a greedy manner. That is to say that some of the threads calling "Write" will take all they can get, while other threads may only call "Write" once in a while.
I have considered using a waitHandle, Monitor, or a C# lock statement however I have heard that these thread concurrency items will not guarantee first-come-first-serve to threads. This could cause the once in a while threads to get starved by the greedy threads. For example: Say that thread "a", "b", and "c" are greedy and they will each call "Write" within an endless loop. Say that thread "d" is not greedy and simply needs to to send a message every 5 seconds. Say we have the following code.

public void Write()
{
Monitor.Enter(commonlockingobject)
Thread.Sleep(500); // Simulate work
Montor.Exit(commonlockingobject)
}

Assume that all threads are started in the order a, b, c, d and of course call "Write" immediately.

So it is a given that thread a acquires the Monitor immediately and the remaining threads wait. Who will acquire the lock next? As I understand, there is no way to know for sure. It will probably be "b", but there are no guarantees.
Considering that there are no guarantees let us say that once "a" exits the Monitor "b" acquires the lock next. "a" calls "Write" again as soon as its call returns and of course "a" is blocked by Monitor.Enter. Now let us say that once thread "b" call Monitor.Exit thread "a" acquires the Monitor again (why not there are no guarantees?). Then thread "b" calls "Write" again and is again blocked by Monitor.Enter. So say thread "b" acquires the Monitor next, and then thread "a", and then "b" again, and so on. So thread "c" and "d" never get called. This is not probably but as far as I understand this could happen. Even if thread "d" wasn't able to acquire the Monitor for 20 seconds that would be unacceptable. Thread "d" should be able to acquire the Monitor after 1.5 seconds in this scenario and if the probability of each thread acquiring the lock is even thread "d" should acquire the lock on average about every 0.75 seconds.

OK so you see my problem, now how to get around this problem. Assuming that Monitor acquisition is not first-come-first-serve I must do something differently, but it must still be as efficient as possible. One of my thoughts is code similar to the following:

Queue q = new Queue();

public void Write()
{
// I could of course simply create a stack of size N where N is the
// max potential number of calling threads and put AutoResetEvents
// on the stack when they are not being used and pop them off the stack
// while they are being used, that would avoid all this object creation
// but would then require a synchronized stack wrapper which might slow things down
// even more
AutoResetEvent are = new AutoResetEvent(false);

lock(q)
{
if(q.Count > 0)
q.Enqueue(are);
else
are.Set();
}

are.WaitOne();

lock(q)
{
if(q.Count > 0)
((AutoResetEvent)q.Dequeue()).Set();
}

}
Two questions:
1) Does anyone have proof that Monitor.Enter is or is NOT first-come-first-serve? I asked a similar question before in a newsgroup and got an MVP reply as well as some others, but no one could provide a reference to a reliable source of documentation on the subject.
2) If Monitor.Enter is NOT first-come-fist-serve does anyone have a way of doing this in a more efficient manner than the code above? I am pretty certain the answer is yes, I would very much like to see the superior or better still ultimate solution to this problem.

Thanks,

-Chris Tanger

[Greg Young]

http://www.developer.com/net/net/article.php/1580401

"Chris Tanger" <Chris Ta****@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:AF**********************************@microsof t.com...

I am creating a class that has a method "Write" that I wish to make threadsafe. The method must block calling threads until the task performed
in write is complete. Only 1 thread at a time can perform the task within
"Write". 1-10 different threads may call "Write" simultaneously and
continuously, some in a greedy manner. That is to say that some of the
threads calling "Write" will take all they can get, while other threads may
only call "Write" once in a while. I have considered using a waitHandle, Monitor, or a C# lock statement however I have heard that these thread concurrency items will not guarantee
first-come-first-serve to threads. This could cause the once in a while
threads to get starved by the greedy threads. For example: Say that thread
"a", "b", and "c" are greedy and they will each call "Write" within an
endless loop. Say that thread "d" is not greedy and simply needs to to send
a message every 5 seconds. Say we have the following code.
public void Write()
{
Monitor.Enter(commonlockingobject)
Thread.Sleep(500); // Simulate work
Montor.Exit(commonlockingobject)
}

Assume that all threads are started in the order a, b, c, d and of course call "Write" immediately.
So it is a given that thread a acquires the Monitor immediately and the remaining threads wait. Who will acquire the lock next? As I
understand, there is no way to know for sure. It will probably be "b", but
there are no guarantees. Considering that there are no guarantees let us say that once "a" exits the Monitor "b" acquires the lock next. "a" calls "Write" again as
soon as its call returns and of course "a" is blocked by Monitor.Enter. Now
let us say that once thread "b" call Monitor.Exit thread "a" acquires the
Monitor again (why not there are no guarantees?). Then thread "b" calls
"Write" again and is again blocked by Monitor.Enter. So say thread "b"
acquires the Monitor next, and then thread "a", and then "b" again, and so
on. So thread "c" and "d" never get called. This is not probably but as
far as I understand this could happen. Even if thread "d" wasn't able to
acquire the Monitor for 20 seconds that would be unacceptable. Thread "d"
should be able to acquire the Monitor after 1.5 seconds in this scenario and
if the probability of each thread acquiring the lock is even thread "d"
should acquire the lock on average about every 0.75 seconds.
OK so you see my problem, now how to get around this problem. Assuming that Monitor acquisition is not first-come-first-serve I must do
something differently, but it must still be as efficient as possible. One
of my thoughts is code similar to the following:
Queue q = new Queue();

public void Write()
{
// I could of course simply create a stack of size N where N is the
// max potential number of calling threads and put AutoResetEvents
// on the stack when they are not being used and pop them off the stack // while they are being used, that would avoid all this object creation // but would then require a synchronized stack wrapper which might slow things down // even more
AutoResetEvent are = new AutoResetEvent(false);

lock(q)
{
if(q.Count > 0)
q.Enqueue(are);
else
are.Set();
}

are.WaitOne();

lock(q)
{
if(q.Count > 0)
((AutoResetEvent)q.Dequeue()).Set();
}

}
Two questions:
1) Does anyone have proof that Monitor.Enter is or is NOT first-come-first-serve? I asked a similar question before in a newsgroup
and got an MVP reply as well as some others, but no one could provide a
reference to a reliable source of documentation on the subject. 2) If Monitor.Enter is NOT first-come-fist-serve does anyone have a way of doing this in a more efficient manner than the code above? I am pretty
certain the answer is yes, I would very much like to see the superior or
better still ultimate solution to this problem.
Thanks,

-Chris Tanger

[Greg Young]

key areas as I generally avoid links ...

So, if it's not possible to fix this problem, then you might ask if
Monitor's TryEnter method is buggy or not. Well, as it turns out, Monitor's
TryEnter is not buggy. Internally, TryEnter sleeps waiting for an owned
object to become available. When the thread that owns the object releases
it, all waiting threads are awakened. Each of the waiting threads loops
around trying to gain ownership of the object again. One of the waiting
threads will become the owner and the other threads will go back to sleep.
When a thread goes back to sleep, it subtracts the amount of time that the
thread has already slept from the amount of time the caller specified to the
TryEnter method. So, to the caller, it looks like the thread is sleeping the
correct amount of time. While TryEnter is not buggy, it is not fair: It's
entirely possible (and quite likely) that multiple threads waiting to own an
object will not be serviced in a first-in-first-out fashion.

So, the important thing for you to be aware of is that thread
synchronization using the Monitor class is not fair in the .NET Framework
and there is no way to make it fair. This means that if you have threads
that are constantly trying to own an object using a Monitor, it is possible
that some threads will never gain ownership! This also means that you should
not use the Monitor if you are building an application that tries to
simulate some kind of real-world situation that involves a queue. For
example, you should not try to build a supermarket simulation where
customers are standing in line at a cash register trying to be serviced on a
first-come-first-serve basis and you want to see how many customers can be
serviced per hour. If you use a Monitor for this, the simulation will be
broken because it would allow customers to jump in front of other customers
in the line.

"Chris Tanger" <Chris Ta****@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:AF**********************************@microsof t.com...

I am creating a class that has a method "Write" that I wish to make threadsafe. The method must block calling threads until the task performed
in write is complete. Only 1 thread at a time can perform the task within
"Write". 1-10 different threads may call "Write" simultaneously and
continuously, some in a greedy manner. That is to say that some of the
threads calling "Write" will take all they can get, while other threads may
only call "Write" once in a while. I have considered using a waitHandle, Monitor, or a C# lock statement however I have heard that these thread concurrency items will not guarantee
first-come-first-serve to threads. This could cause the once in a while
threads to get starved by the greedy threads. For example: Say that thread
"a", "b", and "c" are greedy and they will each call "Write" within an
endless loop. Say that thread "d" is not greedy and simply needs to to send
a message every 5 seconds. Say we have the following code.
public void Write()
{
Monitor.Enter(commonlockingobject)
Thread.Sleep(500); // Simulate work
Montor.Exit(commonlockingobject)
}

Assume that all threads are started in the order a, b, c, d and of course call "Write" immediately.
So it is a given that thread a acquires the Monitor immediately and the remaining threads wait. Who will acquire the lock next? As I
understand, there is no way to know for sure. It will probably be "b", but
there are no guarantees. Considering that there are no guarantees let us say that once "a" exits the Monitor "b" acquires the lock next. "a" calls "Write" again as
soon as its call returns and of course "a" is blocked by Monitor.Enter. Now
let us say that once thread "b" call Monitor.Exit thread "a" acquires the
Monitor again (why not there are no guarantees?). Then thread "b" calls
"Write" again and is again blocked by Monitor.Enter. So say thread "b"
acquires the Monitor next, and then thread "a", and then "b" again, and so
on. So thread "c" and "d" never get called. This is not probably but as
far as I understand this could happen. Even if thread "d" wasn't able to
acquire the Monitor for 20 seconds that would be unacceptable. Thread "d"
should be able to acquire the Monitor after 1.5 seconds in this scenario and
if the probability of each thread acquiring the lock is even thread "d"
should acquire the lock on average about every 0.75 seconds.
OK so you see my problem, now how to get around this problem. Assuming that Monitor acquisition is not first-come-first-serve I must do
something differently, but it must still be as efficient as possible. One
of my thoughts is code similar to the following:
Queue q = new Queue();

public void Write()
{
// I could of course simply create a stack of size N where N is the
// max potential number of calling threads and put AutoResetEvents
// on the stack when they are not being used and pop them off the stack // while they are being used, that would avoid all this object creation // but would then require a synchronized stack wrapper which might slow things down // even more
AutoResetEvent are = new AutoResetEvent(false);

lock(q)
{
if(q.Count > 0)
q.Enqueue(are);
else
are.Set();
}

are.WaitOne();

lock(q)
{
if(q.Count > 0)
((AutoResetEvent)q.Dequeue()).Set();
}

}
Two questions:
1) Does anyone have proof that Monitor.Enter is or is NOT first-come-first-serve? I asked a similar question before in a newsgroup
and got an MVP reply as well as some others, but no one could provide a
reference to a reliable source of documentation on the subject. 2) If Monitor.Enter is NOT first-come-fist-serve does anyone have a way of doing this in a more efficient manner than the code above? I am pretty
certain the answer is yes, I would very much like to see the superior or
better still ultimate solution to this problem.
Thanks,

-Chris Tanger

[Niki Estner]

The docs about mutexs say: (actually win32 mutexes, but I'd guess this also
applies to .net-mutexes on a win32 system)

"Threads that are waiting for ownership of a mutex are placed in a first in,
first out (FIFO) queue. Therefore, the first thread to wait on the mutex
will be the first to receive ownership of the mutex, regardless of thread
priority. However, kernel-mode APCs and events that suspend a thread will
cause the system to remove the thread from the queue. When the thread
resumes its wait for the mutex, it is placed at the end of the queue."

Thus you cannot be 100% sure your threads will *always* come in fifo order,
however your worst-case scenario does seem pretty implausible. Also, the
priority of threads that have been waiting for too long will be increased by
the OS, so they will (after a second or so) be first anyway.

The same docs say that this ordering cannot be assumed for critical
sections; I *think* Monitor.Enter internally uses critical sections, but I
really don't know.

Last but not least, a little suggestion: Maybe, if your Write method is that
expensive (I suppose a database or file), and so many threads access, you
should somehow buffer it? Waiting threads reduce throughput, a few extra
instructions might make everything a lot faster?

Niki
"Chris Tanger" <Chris Ta****@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
news:AF**********************************@microsof t.com...

I am creating a class that has a method "Write" that I wish to make threadsafe. The method must block calling threads until the task performed
in write is complete. Only 1 thread at a time can perform the task within
"Write". 1-10 different threads may call "Write" simultaneously and
continuously, some in a greedy manner. That is to say that some of the
threads calling "Write" will take all they can get, while other threads may
only call "Write" once in a while. I have considered using a waitHandle, Monitor, or a C# lock statement however I have heard that these thread concurrency items will not guarantee
first-come-first-serve to threads. This could cause the once in a while
threads to get starved by the greedy threads. For example: Say that thread
"a", "b", and "c" are greedy and they will each call "Write" within an
endless loop. Say that thread "d" is not greedy and simply needs to to send
a message every 5 seconds. Say we have the following code.
public void Write()
{
Monitor.Enter(commonlockingobject)
Thread.Sleep(500); // Simulate work
Montor.Exit(commonlockingobject)
}

Assume that all threads are started in the order a, b, c, d and of course call "Write" immediately.
So it is a given that thread a acquires the Monitor immediately and the remaining threads wait. Who will acquire the lock next? As I
understand, there is no way to know for sure. It will probably be "b", but
there are no guarantees. Considering that there are no guarantees let us say that once "a" exits the Monitor "b" acquires the lock next. "a" calls "Write" again as
soon as its call returns and of course "a" is blocked by Monitor.Enter. Now
let us say that once thread "b" call Monitor.Exit thread "a" acquires the
Monitor again (why not there are no guarantees?). Then thread "b" calls
"Write" again and is again blocked by Monitor.Enter. So say thread "b"
acquires the Monitor next, and then thread "a", and then "b" again, and so
on. So thread "c" and "d" never get called. This is not probably but as
far as I understand this could happen. Even if thread "d" wasn't able to
acquire the Monitor for 20 seconds that would be unacceptable. Thread "d"
should be able to acquire the Monitor after 1.5 seconds in this scenario and
if the probability of each thread acquiring the lock is even thread "d"
should acquire the lock on average about every 0.75 seconds.
OK so you see my problem, now how to get around this problem. Assuming that Monitor acquisition is not first-come-first-serve I must do
something differently, but it must still be as efficient as possible. One
of my thoughts is code similar to the following:
Queue q = new Queue();

public void Write()
{
// I could of course simply create a stack of size N where N is the
// max potential number of calling threads and put AutoResetEvents
// on the stack when they are not being used and pop them off the stack // while they are being used, that would avoid all this object creation // but would then require a synchronized stack wrapper which might slow things down // even more
AutoResetEvent are = new AutoResetEvent(false);

lock(q)
{
if(q.Count > 0)
q.Enqueue(are);
else
are.Set();
}

are.WaitOne();

lock(q)
{
if(q.Count > 0)
((AutoResetEvent)q.Dequeue()).Set();
}

}
Two questions:
1) Does anyone have proof that Monitor.Enter is or is NOT first-come-first-serve? I asked a similar question before in a newsgroup
and got an MVP reply as well as some others, but no one could provide a
reference to a reliable source of documentation on the subject. 2) If Monitor.Enter is NOT first-come-fist-serve does anyone have a way of doing this in a more efficient manner than the code above? I am pretty
certain the answer is yes, I would very much like to see the superior or
better still ultimate solution to this problem.
Thanks,

-Chris Tanger