Deallocation of computer data in a multithreaded computer
US7328438B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Mar 27, 2003 |
| Grant date | Feb 5, 2008 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jan 25, 2026 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
- CPC primaryY10S707/99957
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
An apparatus, program product and method support the deallocation of a data structure in a multithreaded computer without requiring the use of computationally expensive semaphores or spin locks. Specifically, access to a data structure is governed by a shared pointer that, when a request is received to deallocate the data structure, is initially set to a value that indicates to any thread that later accesses the pointer that the data structure is not available. In addition, to address any thread that already holds a copy of the shared pointer, and thus is capable of accessing the data structure via the shared pointer after the initiation of the request, all such threads are monitored to determine whether any thread is still using the shared pointer by determining whether any thread is executing program code that is capable of using the shared pointer to access the data structure. Once this condition is met, it is ensured that no thread can potentially access the data structure via the shared pointer, and as such, the data structure may then be deallocated.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.