Lock-free ring buffer

A machine-readable non-transitory medium having stored thereon machine-executable instructions for writing, by a computing thread, data to a ring buffer, the instructions comprising:

• determining whether the ring buffer is full, based on an atomic variable that represents a number of stored elements in the ring buffer;
• and
• in response to determining that the ring buffer is not full:
• incrementing a size variable corresponding to the number of stored elements in the ring buffer;
• reserving a portion of the ring buffer at which the data is to be written;
• determining whether a state of the portion of the ring buffer is in change by at least one other computing thread;
• and
• in response to determining that the state of the portion of the ring buffer is not in change by the at least one other computing thread:
• marking the state of the portion of the ring buffer as being in change by the computing thread;
• and
• writing the data to the portion of the ring buffer.

A method for reading data from a ring buffer by a computing thread, the method comprising:

• determining whether the ring buffer is empty, based on an atomic variable that represents a number of stored elements in the ring buffer;
• in response to determining that the ring buffer is not empty:
• clearing an element of the ring buffer storing the data, wherein clearing the element comprises decrementing a size variable corresponding to the number of stored elements in the ring buffer;
• identifying a portion of the ring buffer from which the data is to be read;
• determining whether a state of the portion of the ring buffer is in change by at least one other computing thread;
• and
• in response to determining that the state of the portion is not in change by the at least one other computing thread:
• marking the state of the portion of the ring buffer as being in change by the computing thread;
• reading the data from the portion of the ring buffer;
• and
• destroying the data in the portion of the ring buffer.