crossbeam_epoch/
lib.rs

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)]
67extern crate loom_crate as loom;
68
69use cfg_if::cfg_if;
70
71#[cfg(crossbeam_loom)]
72#[allow(unused_imports, dead_code)]
73mod 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            pub(crate) use loom::sync::atomic::{fence, AtomicPtr, AtomicUsize, Ordering};
80
81            // FIXME: loom does not support compiler_fence at the moment.
82            // https://github.com/tokio-rs/loom/issues/117
83            // we use fence as a stand-in for compiler_fence for the time being.
84            // this may miss some races since fence is stronger than compiler_fence,
85            // but it's the best we can do for the time being.
86            pub(crate) use self::fence as compiler_fence;
87        }
88        pub(crate) use loom::sync::Arc;
89    }
90    pub(crate) use loom::thread_local;
91}
92#[cfg(target_has_atomic = "ptr")]
93#[cfg(not(crossbeam_loom))]
94#[allow(unused_imports, dead_code)]
95mod primitive {
96    pub(crate) mod cell {
97        #[derive(Debug)]
98        #[repr(transparent)]
99        pub(crate) struct UnsafeCell<T>(::core::cell::UnsafeCell<T>);
100
101        // loom's UnsafeCell has a slightly different API than the standard library UnsafeCell.
102        // Since we want the rest of the code to be agnostic to whether it's running under loom or
103        // not, we write this small wrapper that provides the loom-supported API for the standard
104        // library UnsafeCell. This is also what the loom documentation recommends:
105        // https://github.com/tokio-rs/loom#handling-loom-api-differences
106        impl<T> UnsafeCell<T> {
107            #[inline]
108            pub(crate) const fn new(data: T) -> UnsafeCell<T> {
109                UnsafeCell(::core::cell::UnsafeCell::new(data))
110            }
111
112            #[inline]
113            pub(crate) fn with<R>(&self, f: impl FnOnce(*const T) -> R) -> R {
114                f(self.0.get())
115            }
116
117            #[inline]
118            pub(crate) fn with_mut<R>(&self, f: impl FnOnce(*mut T) -> R) -> R {
119                f(self.0.get())
120            }
121        }
122    }
123    pub(crate) mod sync {
124        pub(crate) mod atomic {
125            pub(crate) use core::sync::atomic::{
126                compiler_fence, fence, AtomicPtr, AtomicUsize, Ordering,
127            };
128        }
129        #[cfg(feature = "alloc")]
130        pub(crate) use alloc::sync::Arc;
131    }
132
133    #[cfg(feature = "std")]
134    pub(crate) use std::thread_local;
135}
136
137#[cfg(target_has_atomic = "ptr")]
138cfg_if! {
139    if #[cfg(feature = "alloc")] {
140        extern crate alloc;
141
142        mod atomic;
143        mod collector;
144        mod deferred;
145        mod epoch;
146        mod guard;
147        mod internal;
148        mod sync;
149
150        pub use self::atomic::{
151            Pointable, Atomic, CompareExchangeError,
152            Owned, Pointer, Shared,
153        };
154        pub use self::collector::{Collector, LocalHandle};
155        pub use self::guard::{unprotected, Guard};
156
157        #[allow(deprecated)]
158        pub use self::atomic::{CompareAndSetError, CompareAndSetOrdering};
159    }
160}
161
162cfg_if! {
163    if #[cfg(feature = "std")] {
164        mod default;
165        pub use self::default::{default_collector, is_pinned, pin};
166    }
167}