Space-efficient construction of buffer-optimal 1-writer 1-reader multivalued atomic variable

Abstract

This paper resolves an efficiency issues in the construction of 1-writer 1-reader multivalued atomic shared (read/write) variable from safe bits. A 1-writer 1-reader construction is buffer-optimal if the following properties is satisfied: 1) shared variables are used either as buffers or as control variables; buffers store the values that are written and control variable coordinate reading and writing of the buffers; no control information is written in the buffer; 2) buffers contain only value from the domain of the variable; 3) optimum number of 1-reader safe buffers are used; 4) there is almost one reading of a buffer in a read execution; and 5) there is only one writing of a buffer in a write execution. The implications of these properties on construction is discussed. It is shown that to satisfy property 5, at least five control bits are needed.