Compare and delay instructions

A computer program product for executing a machine instruction in a multi-threaded computing environment, said computer program product comprising:

• a computer readable storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method comprising:
• obtaining, by a thread of the multi-threaded computing environment, a compare and delay instruction for execution, the compare and delay instruction being defined for computer execution according to a computer architecture, the compare and delay instruction comprising:
• an operation code to specify a compare and delay operation;
• one or more first fields to be used to obtain a first operand;
• and
• one or more second fields to be used to obtain a second operand;
• and
• executing the compare and delay instruction on the thread of the multi-threaded computing environment, the executing the compare and delay instruction comprising:
• comparing the first operand and the second obtained using fields of the compare and delay to obtain a comparison result, the second operand accessible by the thread and another thread of the multi-threaded computing environment;
• determining whether a mask indicator corresponding to the comparison result is set to a defined value;
• and
• based on determining that the mask indicator corresponding to the comparison result is set to the defined value, delaying completion of the compare and delay instruction that is executing until occurrence of a predefined event, wherein the delaying comprises repeating the comparing and the determining whether the mask indicator corresponding to the comparison result is set to the defined value, and wherein the delaying delays execution on the thread allowing progress to be made on the other thread of the multi-threaded computing environment to provide synchronization between the thread and the other thread.