System and method for space and time efficient object locking
US5862376A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jun 24, 1996 |
| Grant date | Jan 19, 1999 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jun 24, 2016 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F9/4401
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
In a system and method for managing repeated lock requests to synchronize an object with a particular thread, each lockable object has a lock datum and each thread can repeatedly request a lock for an object without knowing whether the thread is already synchronized with the object. Associated with each thread are a pair of locking registers and a pair of stack data structures. The registers reference the last object whose lock was acquired by the thread and contain a redundancy count indicating the number of consecutive lock requests for the object. The stack data structures contain references to other objects that are currently synchronized with the thread and an associated redundancy count for each such object. A locking procedure acquires the lock of an object only if a reference to the object is not contained in the registers or the stack data structures. For lock requests on objects that are already synchronized with the thread, the thread's locking registers and stack data structures are updated to reflect the additional lock request. An unlocking procedure releases an object's lock only when all lock requests for the object are relinquished by the thread.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.