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Serializing Tokens
In computer science, serializing tokens are a concept in concurrency control arising from the ongoing development of DragonFly BSD. According to Matthew Dillon, they are most akin to SPLs, except a token works across multiple CPUs while SPLs only work within a single CPU's domain. Serializing tokens allow programmers to write multiprocessor-safe code without themselves or the lower level subsystems needing to be aware of every single entity that may also be holding the same token. Comparison with mutual exclusion (mutex) Tokens and mutual exclusion (mutex) mechanisms are locks. Unlike mutexes, tokens do not exclude other threads from accessing the resource while they are blocked or asleep. A thread sharing resources with other threads can be stopped and started for a variety of reasons: # Timeslicing: the user space (US) scheduler tries to ensure that all threads get a fair chance to run, so it runs each thread for a brief period of time (a timeslice) and then switches to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (including the design and implementation of hardware and software). Computer science is generally considered an area of academic research and distinct from computer programming. Algorithms and data structures are central to computer science. The theory of computation concerns abstract models of computation and general classes of problems that can be solved using them. The fields of cryptography and computer security involve studying the means for secure communication and for preventing security vulnerabilities. Computer graphics and computational geometry address the generation of images. Programming language theory considers different ways to describe computational processes, and database theory concerns the management of repositories o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DragonFly BSD
DragonFly BSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system forked from FreeBSD 4.8. Matthew Dillon, an Amiga developer in the late 1980s and early 1990s and FreeBSD developer between 1994 and 2003, began working on DragonFly BSD in June 2003 and announced it on the FreeBSD mailing lists on 16 July 2003. Dillon started DragonFly in the belief that the techniques adopted for threading and symmetric multiprocessing in FreeBSD 5 would lead to poor performance and maintenance problems. He sought to correct these anticipated problems within the FreeBSD project. Due to conflicts with other FreeBSD developers over the implementation of his ideas, his ability to directly change the codebase was eventually revoked. Despite this, the DragonFly BSD and FreeBSD projects still work together, sharing bug fixes, driver updates, and other improvements. Intended as the logical continuation of the FreeBSD 4.x series, DragonFly has diverged significantly from FreeBSD, implementing l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matt Dillon (computer Scientist)
Matthew Dillon (born 1966) is an American software engineer known for Amiga software, contributions to FreeBSD and for starting and leading the DragonFly BSD project since 2003. Biography Dillon studied electronic engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he first became involved with BSD in 1985. He also became known for his Amiga programming, his C compiler DICE and his work on the Linux kernel. He founded and worked at Best Internet from 1994 until 1997, contributing to FreeBSD in that time. His "Diablo" internet news transit program was very popular with many ISPs. In 1997, Dillon gained commit access to the FreeBSD code and heavily contributed to the virtual memory subsystem, amongst other contributions. Concerned with problems he saw in the direction FreeBSD 5.x was headed in regards to concurrency, and coupled with the fact that Dillon's access to the FreeBSD source code repository was revoked due to a falling-out with other Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spl (Unix)
spl (short for set priority level, after the PDP-11 assembler instruction of the same name) is the name for a collection of Unix kernel routines or macros used to change the interrupt priority level. This was historically needed to synchronize critical sections of kernel code that should not be interrupted. Newer Unix variants which support symmetric multiprocessing now mostly use mutexes for this purpose, which is a more general solution, so multiple processors can execute kernel code at the same time. On older PDP-11 versions of Unix, there were eight of these routines, ranging from spl0 to spl7, each corresponding to one PDP-11 interrupt priority level, in addition to splx, which restores a previous priority level (returned by one of the other routines). On BSD Unix and its derivatives, these are called splhigh, splserial, splsched, splclock, splstatclock, splvm, spltty, splsofttty, splnet, splbio, splsoftnet, splsoftclock, spllowersoftclock, spl0, and splx. , the spl fami ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Processing Unit
A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just Processor (computing), processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes Instruction (computing), instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and input/output (I/O) operations specified by the instructions in the program. This contrasts with external components such as main memory and I/O circuitry, and specialized processors such as graphics processing units (GPUs). The form, CPU design, design, and implementation of CPUs have changed over time, but their fundamental operation remains almost unchanged. Principal components of a CPU include the arithmetic–logic unit (ALU) that performs arithmetic and logic operations, processor registers that supply operands to the ALU and store the results of ALU operations, and a control unit that orchestrates the #Fetch, fetching (from memory), #Decode, decoding and #Execute, execution (of instruc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multiprocessor
Multiprocessing is the use of two or more central processing units (CPUs) within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor or the ability to allocate tasks between them. There are many variations on this basic theme, and the definition of multiprocessing can vary with context, mostly as a function of how CPUs are defined ( multiple cores on one die, multiple dies in one package, multiple packages in one system unit, etc.). According to some on-line dictionaries, a multiprocessor is a computer system having two or more processing units (multiple processors) each sharing main memory and peripherals, in order to simultaneously process programs. A 2009 textbook defined multiprocessor system similarly, but noting that the processors may share "some or all of the system’s memory and I/O facilities"; it also gave tightly coupled system as a synonymous term. At the operating system level, ''multiprocessing'' is so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutual Exclusion
In computer science, mutual exclusion is a property of concurrency control, which is instituted for the purpose of preventing race conditions. It is the requirement that one thread of execution never enters a critical section while a concurrent thread of execution is already accessing said critical section, which refers to an interval of time during which a thread of execution accesses a shared resource or shared memory. The shared resource is a data object, which two or more concurrent threads are trying to modify (where two concurrent read operations are permitted but, no two concurrent write operations or one read and one write are permitted, since it leads to data inconsistency). Mutual exclusion algorithm ensures that if a process is already performing write operation on a data object ritical sectionno other process/thread is allowed to access/modify the same object until the first process has finished writing upon the data object ritical sectionand released the object fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lock (computer Science)
In computer science, a lock or mutex (from mutual exclusion) is a synchronization primitive: a mechanism that enforces limits on access to a resource when there are many threads of execution. A lock is designed to enforce a mutual exclusion concurrency control policy, and with a variety of possible methods there exists multiple unique implementations for different applications. Types Generally, locks are ''advisory locks'', where each thread cooperates by acquiring the lock before accessing the corresponding data. Some systems also implement ''mandatory locks'', where attempting unauthorized access to a locked resource will force an exception in the entity attempting to make the access. The simplest type of lock is a binary semaphore. It provides exclusive access to the locked data. Other schemes also provide shared access for reading data. Other widely implemented access modes are exclusive, intend-to-exclude and intend-to-upgrade. Another way to classify locks is by what happ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Light Weight Kernel Threads
Light Weight Kernel Threads (LWKT) is a computer science term and from DragonFlyBSD in particular. LWKTs differ from normal kernel threads in that they can preempt normal kernel threads. According to Matt Dillon, DragonFlyBSD creator: See also *Light-weight process *Thread (computer science) In computer science, a thread of execution is the smallest sequence of programmed instructions that can be managed independently by a scheduler, which is typically a part of the operating system. The implementation of threads and processes di ... Sources Matt Dillon's post about the LWKT scheduler* * * * * * * * * Threads (computing) DragonFly BSD {{Operating-system-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deadlock
In concurrent computing, deadlock is any situation in which no member of some group of entities can proceed because each waits for another member, including itself, to take action, such as sending a message or, more commonly, releasing a lock. Deadlocks are a common problem in multiprocessing systems, parallel computing, and distributed systems, because in these contexts systems often use software or hardware locks to arbitrate shared resources and implement process synchronization. In an operating system, a deadlock occurs when a process or thread enters a waiting state because a requested system resource is held by another waiting process, which in turn is waiting for another resource held by another waiting process. If a process remains indefinitely unable to change its state because resources requested by it are being used by another process that itself is waiting, then the system is said to be in a deadlock. In a communications system, deadlocks occur mainly due to l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Priority Inversion
In computer science, priority inversion is a scenario in scheduling in which a high priority task is indirectly superseded by a lower priority task effectively inverting the assigned priorities of the tasks. This violates the priority model that high-priority tasks can only be prevented from running by higher-priority tasks. Inversion occurs when there is a resource contention with a low-priority task that is then preempted by a medium-priority task. Formulation Consider two tasks H and L, of high and low priority respectively, either of which can acquire exclusive use of a shared resource R. If H attempts to acquire R after L has acquired it, then H becomes blocked until L relinquishes the resource. Sharing an exclusive-use resource (R in this case) in a well-designed system typically involves L relinquishing R promptly so that H (a higher priority task) does not stay blocked for excessive periods of time. Despite good design, however, it is possible that a third task M of med ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudocode
In computer science, pseudocode is a plain language description of the steps in an algorithm or another system. Pseudocode often uses structural conventions of a normal programming language, but is intended for human reading rather than machine reading. It typically omits details that are essential for machine understanding of the algorithm, such as variable declarations and language-specific code. The programming language is augmented with natural language description details, where convenient, or with compact mathematical notation. The purpose of using pseudocode is that it is easier for people to understand than conventional programming language code, and that it is an efficient and environment-independent description of the key principles of an algorithm. It is commonly used in textbooks and scientific publications to document algorithms and in planning of software and other algorithms. No broad standard for pseudocode syntax exists, as a program in pseudocode is not an execu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
