NON-BUSY-WAITING RESOURCE CONTROL

摘要

A data structure has a value field for storing values and a lock field for indicating a lock state of the resource associated with the data structure. This data structure is used to implement a locking protocol amongst multiple processes competing for shared resources. If the lock field is in a locked state, the process that locked the lock field has exclusive acess to the resource. If, however, the lock field is in an unlocked state, any process may gain access to the resource. The lock field also has deferred states corresponding to the locked and unlocked states wherein multiple requests to lock or unlock the resource may be stored until serviced. The locking protocol is useful in a data processing system having multiple processing elements and utilizes a locking means that includes a local memory controller.