Fair Solution to the Reader-Writer-Problem with Semaphores only

2003/03/08 by H. Ballhausen, Ballhausen, H.
Computer Science · #D.1.3 #Distributed #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Parallel #and Cluster Computing (cs.DC) #cs.DC

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cs/0303005

2 pages

arxiv created 2003/03/08 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30

Abstract

The reader-writer-problem is a standard problem in concurrent programming. A resource is shared by several processes which need either inclusive reading or exclusive writing access. The known solutions to this problem typically involve a number of global counters and queues. Here a very simple algorithm is presented which needs only two semaphores for synchronisation and no other global objects. The approach yields a fair solution without starving.

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