Value recycling facility for multithreaded computations

Abstract

Solutions to a value recycling problem facilitate implementations of computer programs that may execute as multithreaded computations in multiprocessor computers, as well as implementations of related shared data structures. Some exploitations allow non-blocking, shared data structures to be implemented using standard dynamic allocation mechanisms (such as malloc and free). Some exploitations allow non-blocking, indeed even lock-free or wait-free, implementations of dynamic storage allocation for shared data structures. In some exploitations, our techniques provide a way to manage dynamically allocated memory in a non-blocking manner without depending on garbage collection. While exploitations of solutions to the value recycling problem that we propose include management of dynamic storage allocation wherein values managed and recycled tend to include values that encode pointers, they are not limited thereto. Indeed, the techniques are more generally applicable to management of values in a multithreaded computation. For example, value recycling techniques may be exploited, in some cases, apart from dynamic storage allocation, to allow a multithreaded computation to avoid the classic ABA hazard.

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