Nontrivial and universal helping for wait-free queues and stacks

Hagit Attiya, Armando Castañeda, Danny Hendler

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

This paper studies two approaches to formalize helping in wait-free implementations of shared objects. The first approach is based on operation valency, and it allows us to make the important distinction between trivial and nontrivial helping. We show that a wait-free implementation of a queue from common2 objects (e.g., Test&Set) requires nontrivial helping. In contrast, there is a wait-free implementation of a stack from Common2 objects with only trivial helping. This separation might shed light on the difficulty of implementing a queue from Common2 objects. The other approach formalizes the helping mechanism employed by Herlihy's universal waitfree construction and is based on having an operation by one process restrict the possible linearizations of operations by other processes. We show that objects possessing such universal helping can be used to solve consensus.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication19th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems, OPODIS 2015
EditorsEmmanuelle Anceaume, Christian Cachin, Maria Potop-Butucaru
Pages31.1-31.16
ISBN (Electronic)9783939897989
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Sep 2016
Event19th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems, OPODIS 2015 - Rennes, France
Duration: 14 Dec 201517 Dec 2015

Publication series

NameLeibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs
Volume46

Conference

Conference19th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems, OPODIS 2015
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityRennes
Period14/12/1517/12/15

Keywords

  • Common2
  • Helping
  • Nonblocking
  • Queues
  • Stacks
  • Wait-free

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software

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