Intro to Condition Variables

Warm up

Name these properties!

• "Only one process(/thread) can be in the CS at a time"
• "If waiting, then another process can only enter the CS a finite number of times"
• "If no other process is in the CS then the process can immediately enter the CS"

See Synchronization, Part 4: The Critical Section Problem for answers.

What are condition variables? How do you use them? What is Spurious Wakeup?

• Condition variables allow a set of threads to sleep until tickled! You can tickle one thread or all threads that are sleeping. If you only wake one thread then the operating system will decide which thread to wake up. You don't wake threads directly instead you 'signal' the condition variable, which then will wake up one (or all) threads that are sleeping inside the condition variable.

• Condition variables are used with a mutex and with a loop (to check a condition).

• Occasionally a waiting thread may appear to wake up for no reason (this is called a spurious wake)! This is not an issue because you always use wait inside a loop that tests a condition that must be true to continue.

• Threads sleeping inside a condition variable are woken up by calling pthread_cond_broadcast (wake up all) or pthread_cond_signal (wake up one). Note despite the function name, this has nothing to do with POSIX signals!

What does pthread_cond_wait do?

The call pthread_cond_wait performs three actions:

1. unlock the mutex
2. waits (sleeps until pthread_cond_signal is called on the same condition variable). It does 1 and 2 atomically.
3. Before returning, locks the mutex

(Advanced topic) Why do Condition Variables also need a mutex?

Condition variables need a mutex for three reasons. The simplest to understand is that it prevents an early wakeup message (signal or broadcast functions) from being 'lost.' Imagine the following sequence of events (time runs down the page) where the condition is satisfied just before pthread_cond_wait is called. In this example the wake-up signal is lost!

Thread 1	Thread 2
while (answer < 42) {
	answer++
	p_cond_signal(cv)
p_cond_wait(cv, m)

If both threads had locked a mutex, the signal can not be sent until after pthread_cond_wait(cv, m) is called (which then internally unlocks the mutex)

A second common reason is that updating the program state (answer variable) typically requires mutual exclusion - for example multiple threads may be updating the value of answer.

A third and subtle reason is to satisfy real-time scheduling concerns which we only outline here: In a time-critical application, the waiting thread with the highest priority should be allowed to continue first. To satisfy this requirement the mutex must also be locked before calling pthread_cond_signal or pthread_cond_broadcast . For the curious, a longer and historical discussion is here.

Why do spurious wakes exist?

For performance. On multi-CPU systems it is possible that a race-condition could cause a wake-up (signal) request to be unnoticed. The kernel may not detect this lost wake-up call but can detect when it might occur. To avoid the potential lost signal the thread is woken up so that the program code can test the condition again.

Example

Condition variables are always used with a mutex lock.

Before calling wait, the mutex lock must be locked and wait must be wrapped with a loop.

pthread_cond_t cv;
pthread_mutex_t m;
int count;

// Initialize
pthread_cond_init(&cv, NULL);
pthread_mutex_init(&m, NULL);
count = 0;

pthread_mutex_lock(&m);
while (count < 10) {
    pthread_cond_wait(&cv, &m); 
    /* Remember that cond_wait unlocks the mutex before blocking (waiting)! */
    /* After unlocking, other threads can claim the mutex. */
    /* When this thread is later woken it will */
    /* re-lock the mutex before returning */
}
pthread_mutex_unlock(&m);

// later clean up with pthread_cond_destroy(&cv); and mutex_destroy 


// In another thread increment count:
while (1) {
    pthread_mutex_lock(&m);
    count++;
    pthread_cond_signal(&cv);
    /* Even though the other thread is woken up it cannot not return */
    /* from pthread_cond_wait until we have unlocked the mutex. This is */
    /* a good thing! In fact, it is usually the best practice to call */
    /* cond_signal or cond_broadcast before unlocking the mutex */
    pthread_mutex_unlock(&m);
}

Implementing Counting Semaphore

• We can implement a counting semaphore using condition variables.
• Each semaphore needs a count, a condition variable and a mutex

typedef struct sem_t {
    int count; 
    pthread_mutex_t m;
    pthread_condition_t cv;
} sem_t;

Implement sem_init to initialize the mutex and condition variable

int sem_init(sem_t *s, int pshared, int value) {
    if (pshared) { errno = ENOSYS /* 'Not implemented'*/; return -1; }

    s->count = value;
    pthread_mutex_init(&s->m, NULL);
    pthread_cond_init(&s->cv, NULL);
    return 0;
}

Our implementation of sem_post needs to increment the count. We will also wake up any threads sleeping inside the condition variable. Notice we lock and unlock the mutex so only one thread can be inside the critical section at a time.

sem_post(sem_t *s) {
    pthread_mutex_lock(&s->m);
    s->count++;
    pthread_cond_signal(&s->cv); /* See note */
    /* A woken thread must acquire the lock, so it will also have to wait until we call unlock */

    pthread_mutex_unlock(&s->m);
}

Our implementation of sem_wait may need to sleep if the semaphore's count is zero. Just like sem_post we wrap the critical section using the lock (so only one thread can be executing our code at a time). Notice if the thread does need to wait then the mutex will be unlocked, allowing another thread to enter sem_post and waken us from our sleep!

Notice that even if a thread is woken up, before it returns from pthread_cond_wait it must re-acquire the lock, so it will have to wait a little bit more (e.g. until sem_post finishes).

sem_wait(sem_t *s) {
    pthread_mutex_lock(&s->m);
    while (s->count == 0) {
        pthread_cond_wait(&s->cv, &s->m); /*unlock mutex, wait, relock mutex */
    }
    s->count--;
    pthread_mutex_unlock(&s->m);
}

Wait sem_post keeps calling pthread_cond_signal won't that break sem_wait? Answer: No! We can't get past the loop until the count is non-zero. In practice this means sem_post would unnecessary call pthread_cond_signal even if there are no waiting threads. A more efficient implementation would only call pthread_cond_signal when necessary i.e.

    /* Did we increment from zero to one- time to signal a thread sleeping inside sem_post */
    if (s->count == 1) /* Wake up one waiting thread! */
        pthread_cond_signal(&s->cv);

Other semaphore considerations

• Real semaphores implementation include a queue and scheduling concerns to ensure fairness and priority e.g. wake up the highest-priority longest sleeping thread.
• Also, an advanced use of sem_init allows semaphores to be shared across processes. Our implementation only works for threads inside the same process.