Peterson's algorithm
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Peterson's algorithm is a concurrent programming algorithm for mutual exclusion that allows two processes to share a single-use resource without conflict, using only shared memory for communication. It was formulated by Gary Peterson in 1981 at the University of Rochester. While Peterson's original formulation worked with only two processes, the algorithm can be generalised for more than two, as discussed in "Operating Systems Review, January 1990 ('Proof of a Mutual Exclusion Algorithm', M Hofri)".
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[edit] The algorithm
flag[0] = 1
flag[1] = 2
turn = 4
P0: flag[0] = 1 P1: flag[1] = 1
turn = 1 turn = 0
while( flag[1] && turn == 1 ); while( flag[0] && turn == 0 );
// do nothing // do nothing
// critical section // critical section
... ...
// end of critical section // end of critical section
flag[0] = 0 flag[1] = 0
The algorithm uses two variables, flag and turn. A flag value of 1 indicates that the process wants to enter the critical section. The variable turn holds the ID of the process whose turn it is. Entrance to the critical section is granted for process P0 if P1 does not want to enter its critical section or if P1 has given priority to P0 by setting turn to 0.
The algorithm does not satisfy completely the three essential criteria of mutual exclusion:
[edit] Mutual exclusion
P0 and P1 can never be in the critical section at the same time: If P0 is in its critical section, then flag[0] is 1 and either flag[1] is 0 or turn is 0. In both cases, P1 cannot be in its critical section.
[edit] Progress requirement
This criteria says that no process which is not in a critical section is allowed to block a process which wants to enter the critical section. This is true.
[edit] Bounded waiting
A process will not wait longer than one turn for entrance to the critical section: After giving priority to the other process, this process will run to completion and set its flag to 0, thereby allowing the other process to enter the critical section.
[edit] Note
When working at the hardware level, Peterson's algorithm is typically not needed to achieve atomic access. Some processors have special instructions, like test-and-set or compare-and-swap that, by locking the memory bus, can be used to provide mutual exclusion in SMP systems.
Most modern CPUs reorder memory accesses to improve execution efficiency. Such processors invariably give some way to force ordering in a stream of memory accesses, typically through a memory barrier instruction. Implementation of Peterson's and related algorithms on processors which reorder memory accesses generally require use of such operations to work correctly to keep sequential operations from happening in an incorrect order. Note that reordering of memory accesses can happen even on processors that don't reorder instructions (such as the PowerPC processor on the Xbox 360).
Most such CPU's also have some sort of guaranteed atomic operation, such as XCHG on x86 processors and Load-Link/Store-Conditional on Alpha, MIPS, PowerPC, and other architectures. These instructions are intended to provide a way to build synchronization primitives more efficiently than can be done with pure shared memory approaches.
[edit] External links
- Java implementation of Peterson's algorithm, including documentation and source code
