[libdispatch-dev] I missed the intro message ;)

[Robert Watson]

On Sat, 12 Sep 2009, Kevin Van Vechten wrote:

> On Sep 12, 2009, at 2:15 AM, Robert Watson wrote:
>
>> - libdispatch uses Mach semaphores.  In FreeBSD, I've substituted POSIX 
>> semaphores.  I've run into at least one issue doing so, as libdispatch 
>> maintains parallel state and appears not to propagate an initial declared 
>> 'value' to the Mach semaphore.  Once I understand the problem better, I'll 
>> post a more specific query for the Apple folks.  Not an issue for a Leopard 
>> port.
>
> A count is kept in user space and updated with atomic operations.  The 
> general idea is to avoid trapping into the kernel except when blocking is 
> required (or when signaling a blocked thread is required).

There were two things that worried me:

(1) The following comment in semaphore.c:

         // Mach semaphores appear to sometimes spuriously wake up.  Therefore,
         // we keep a parallel count of the number of times a Mach semaphore is
         // signaled (6880961).

(2) That the initial semaphore value, 'value' passed to
     dispatch_semaphore_create(), isn't propaated to the kernel semaphore when
     it's allocated on-demand in _dispatch_posix_semaphore_create().  If the
     kernel semaphore is just the wakeup primitive, this may not be an issue,
     but I haven't read what's there deeply enough to reason about that yet.
     An answer from someone who knows already would be most helpful :-).

Since POSIX semaphores are already a blended kernel/userspace implementation 
on FreeBSD, it sounds like I could ditch the userspace mirrored state, 
although we'll have to see whether that is true of other UNIX systems.

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge