Re: Potential race condition problem

[Guannan Ren <gren@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 09/29/2012 03:52 PM, Benjamin Wang (gendwang) wrote:

Hi,

OK. Now I am using JNA to access libvirt. If we add another mutex which used to access “initialized” parameter. This mutex must be pthread_mutex_init firstly and only once.

But it seems that there is no way to change libvirt code. I do it as following:

1.      Changing libvirt JNA code in Connect.java

Old Code:

    public Connect(String uri) throws LibvirtException {

         VCP = libvirt.virConnectOpen(uri);

        // Check for an error

        processError();

        ErrorHandler.processError(Libvirt.INSTANCE);

    }

 

New Code:

    public Connect(String uri) throws LibvirtException {

         synchronized(this.getClass()) {

                  VCP = libvirt.virConnectOpen(uri);

         }

        // Check for an error

        processError();

        ErrorHandler.processError(Libvirt.INSTANCE);

    }

 

This can make sure only that one thread can execute Connect. For a server application, we only need one time. So the performance is OK

 

2.      Changing libvirt code in libvirt.c

Old Code:

static int initialized = 0;

 

New Code:

static int volatile initialized = 0;

 

This can make sure the initialization will be executed once.

 

Would you give your comments for this solution?

 

B.R.

Benjamin Wang

     As far as I know the operations on volatile variable is not atomic,
  the usage of volatile keyword as a portable synchronization mechanism is discouraged by C.
     But in Java, it is a global ordering on the reads and writes to a volatile variable.
  So, maybe, your first solution is pretty enough good.

  Guannan

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