Automatic mutual exclusion

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9501237-B2
Application number	US-201615016604-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 5, 2016
Priority date	Jun 15, 2007
Publication date	Nov 22, 2016
Grant date	Nov 22, 2016

Abstract

An automatic mutual exclusion computer programming system is disclosed which allows a programmer to produce concurrent programming code that is synchronized by default without the need to write any synchronization code. The programmer creates asynchronous methods which are not permitted make changes to shared memory that they cannot reverse, and can execute concurrently with other asynchronous methods. Changes to shared memory are committed if no other thread has accessed shared memory while the asynchronous method executed. Changes are reversed and the asynchronous method is re-executed if another thread has made changes to shared memory. The resulting program executes in a serialized order. A blocking system method is disclosed which causes the asynchronous method to re-execute until the blocking method's predicate results in an appropriate value. A yield system call is disclosed which divides asynchronous methods into atomic fragments. When a yield method call is made, shared memory changes are committed if possible or reversed and the atomic fragment is re-executed.

First claim

What is claimed:

1. A computer system comprising:
a processor;
a shared memory space accessed by first and second asynchronous methods; and
memory storing executable instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising:
executing a call to the first asynchronous method comprising a first instruction and a second instruction, wherein the first asynchronous method accesses the shared memory space which may be used by the secon…

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Birrell Andrew David
• Isard Michael Acheson

Classifications

• G06F9/3834

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F12/14

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F9/467

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F3/0673

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F12/1425

  Physics · mapped topic