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1 //! Epoch-based memory reclamation.
2 //!
3 //! An interesting problem concurrent collections deal with comes from the remove operation.
4 //! Suppose that a thread removes an element from a lock-free map, while another thread is reading
5 //! that same element at the same time. The first thread must wait until the second thread stops
6 //! reading the element. Only then it is safe to destruct it.
7 //!
8 //! Programming languages that come with garbage collectors solve this problem trivially. The
9 //! garbage collector will destruct the removed element when no thread can hold a reference to it
10 //! anymore.
11 //!
12 //! This crate implements a basic memory reclamation mechanism, which is based on epochs. When an
13 //! element gets removed from a concurrent collection, it is inserted into a pile of garbage and
14 //! marked with the current epoch. Every time a thread accesses a collection, it checks the current
15 //! epoch, attempts to increment it, and destructs some garbage that became so old that no thread
16 //! can be referencing it anymore.
17 //!
18 //! That is the general mechanism behind epoch-based memory reclamation, but the details are a bit
19 //! more complicated. Anyhow, memory reclamation is designed to be fully automatic and something
20 //! users of concurrent collections don't have to worry much about.
21 //!
22 //! # Pointers
23 //!
24 //! Concurrent collections are built using atomic pointers. This module provides [`Atomic`], which
25 //! is just a shared atomic pointer to a heap-allocated object. Loading an [`Atomic`] yields a
26 //! [`Shared`], which is an epoch-protected pointer through which the loaded object can be safely
27 //! read.
28 //!
29 //! # Pinning
30 //!
31 //! Before an [`Atomic`] can be loaded, a participant must be [`pin`]ned. By pinning a participant
32 //! we declare that any object that gets removed from now on must not be destructed just
33 //! yet. Garbage collection of newly removed objects is suspended until the participant gets
34 //! unpinned.
35 //!
36 //! # Garbage
37 //!
38 //! Objects that get removed from concurrent collections must be stashed away until all currently
39 //! pinned participants get unpinned. Such objects can be stored into a thread-local or global
40 //! storage, where they are kept until the right time for their destruction comes.
41 //!
42 //! There is a global shared instance of garbage queue. You can [`defer`](Guard::defer) the execution of an
43 //! arbitrary function until the global epoch is advanced enough. Most notably, concurrent data
44 //! structures may defer the deallocation of an object.
45 //!
46 //! # APIs
47 //!
48 //! For majority of use cases, just use the default garbage collector by invoking [`pin`]. If you
49 //! want to create your own garbage collector, use the [`Collector`] API.
50 
51 #![doc(test(
52     no_crate_inject,
53     attr(
54         deny(warnings, rust_2018_idioms),
55         allow(dead_code, unused_assignments, unused_variables)
56     )
57 ))]
58 #![warn(
59     missing_docs,
60     missing_debug_implementations,
61     rust_2018_idioms,
62     unreachable_pub
63 )]
64 #![cfg_attr(not(feature = "std"), no_std)]
65 
66 #[cfg(crossbeam_loom)]
67 extern crate loom_crate as loom;
68 
69 use cfg_if::cfg_if;
70 
71 #[cfg(crossbeam_loom)]
72 #[allow(unused_imports, dead_code)]
73 mod primitive {
74     pub(crate) mod cell {
75         pub(crate) use loom::cell::UnsafeCell;
76     }
77     pub(crate) mod sync {
78         pub(crate) mod atomic {
79             use core::sync::atomic::Ordering;
80             pub(crate) use loom::sync::atomic::{fence, AtomicUsize};
81 
82             // FIXME: loom does not support compiler_fence at the moment.
83             // https://github.com/tokio-rs/loom/issues/117
84             // we use fence as a stand-in for compiler_fence for the time being.
85             // this may miss some races since fence is stronger than compiler_fence,
86             // but it's the best we can do for the time being.
87             pub(crate) use self::fence as compiler_fence;
88         }
89         pub(crate) use loom::sync::Arc;
90     }
91     pub(crate) use loom::thread_local;
92 }
93 #[cfg(not(crossbeam_no_atomic_cas))]
94 #[cfg(not(crossbeam_loom))]
95 #[allow(unused_imports, dead_code)]
96 mod primitive {
97     #[cfg(feature = "alloc")]
98     pub(crate) mod cell {
99         #[derive(Debug)]
100         #[repr(transparent)]
101         pub(crate) struct UnsafeCell<T>(::core::cell::UnsafeCell<T>);
102 
103         // loom's UnsafeCell has a slightly different API than the standard library UnsafeCell.
104         // Since we want the rest of the code to be agnostic to whether it's running under loom or
105         // not, we write this small wrapper that provides the loom-supported API for the standard
106         // library UnsafeCell. This is also what the loom documentation recommends:
107         // https://github.com/tokio-rs/loom#handling-loom-api-differences
108         impl<T> UnsafeCell<T> {
109             #[inline]
new(data: T) -> UnsafeCell<T>110             pub(crate) const fn new(data: T) -> UnsafeCell<T> {
111                 UnsafeCell(::core::cell::UnsafeCell::new(data))
112             }
113 
114             #[inline]
with<R>(&self, f: impl FnOnce(*const T) -> R) -> R115             pub(crate) fn with<R>(&self, f: impl FnOnce(*const T) -> R) -> R {
116                 f(self.0.get())
117             }
118 
119             #[inline]
with_mut<R>(&self, f: impl FnOnce(*mut T) -> R) -> R120             pub(crate) fn with_mut<R>(&self, f: impl FnOnce(*mut T) -> R) -> R {
121                 f(self.0.get())
122             }
123         }
124     }
125     #[cfg(feature = "alloc")]
126     pub(crate) mod sync {
127         pub(crate) mod atomic {
128             pub(crate) use core::sync::atomic::compiler_fence;
129             pub(crate) use core::sync::atomic::fence;
130             pub(crate) use core::sync::atomic::AtomicUsize;
131         }
132         pub(crate) use alloc::sync::Arc;
133     }
134 
135     #[cfg(feature = "std")]
136     pub(crate) use std::thread_local;
137 }
138 
139 #[cfg(not(crossbeam_no_atomic_cas))]
140 cfg_if! {
141     if #[cfg(feature = "alloc")] {
142         extern crate alloc;
143 
144         mod atomic;
145         mod collector;
146         mod deferred;
147         mod epoch;
148         mod guard;
149         mod internal;
150         mod sync;
151 
152         pub use self::atomic::{
153             Pointable, Atomic, CompareExchangeError,
154             Owned, Pointer, Shared,
155         };
156         pub use self::collector::{Collector, LocalHandle};
157         pub use self::guard::{unprotected, Guard};
158 
159         #[allow(deprecated)]
160         pub use self::atomic::{CompareAndSetError, CompareAndSetOrdering};
161     }
162 }
163 
164 cfg_if! {
165     if #[cfg(feature = "std")] {
166         mod default;
167         pub use self::default::{default_collector, is_pinned, pin};
168     }
169 }
170