Is this (Lock-Free) Queue Implementation Thread-Safe?
- by Hosam Aly
I am trying to create a lock-free queue implementation in Java, mainly for personal learning. The queue should be a general one, allowing any number of readers and/or writers concurrently.
Would you please review it, and suggest any improvements/issues you find?
Thank you.
import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicReference;
public class LockFreeQueue<T> {
private static class Node<E> {
E value;
volatile Node<E> next;
Node(E value) {
this.value = value;
}
}
private AtomicReference<Node<T>> head, tail;
public LockFreeQueue() {
// have both head and tail point to a dummy node
Node<T> dummyNode = new Node<T>(null);
head = new AtomicReference<Node<T>>(dummyNode);
tail = new AtomicReference<Node<T>>(dummyNode);
}
/**
* Puts an object at the end of the queue.
*/
public void putObject(T value) {
Node<T> newNode = new Node<T>(value);
Node<T> prevTailNode = tail.getAndSet(newNode);
prevTailNode.next = newNode;
}
/**
* Gets an object from the beginning of the queue. The object is removed
* from the queue. If there are no objects in the queue, returns null.
*/
public T getObject() {
Node<T> headNode, valueNode;
// move head node to the next node using atomic semantics
// as long as next node is not null
do {
headNode = head.get();
valueNode = headNode.next;
// try until the whole loop executes pseudo-atomically
// (i.e. unaffected by modifications done by other threads)
} while (valueNode != null && !head.compareAndSet(headNode, valueNode));
T value = (valueNode != null ? valueNode.value : null);
// release the value pointed to by head, keeping the head node dummy
if (valueNode != null)
valueNode.value = null;
return value;
}
