Subj : Re: Best locking methods
To   : comp.programming.threads
From : Joe Seigh
Date : Wed Apr 06 2005 02:09 pm

On Wed, 6 Apr 2005 18:29:17 +0200, Uenal Mutlu <520001085531-0001@t-online.de> wrote:

> What is the best (fastest) method to synchronize access
> to a memory block which is shared by say 5 reader threads
> and 5 writer threads? The memblock can be realloced by
> the writers and hence the pointer can change.
> Platform is x86 Linux and Windows.
>
>
If contention is fairly low, then a simple pthread mutex or
windows critical section will do.

For high contention, a reader writer solution, lock-free
COW (Copy On Write), is better.  You can use RCU, SMR,
or atomic_ptr.  Don't bother with rwlocks which don't perform
any better than mutexes.

-- 
Joe Seigh

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