It is said, that ReentrantReadWriteLock
is intended for one writer and multiple readers.
Nevertheless, readers should wait until some data is present in the buffer.
So, what to lock?
I created concurrency objects like follows:
private final ReentrantReadWriteLock rwl = new ReentrantReadWriteLock();
protected final Lock readLock = rwl.readLock();
protected final Lock writeLock = rwl.writeLock();
protected final Condition hasData = writeLock.newCondition();
now in write method I do:
writeLock.lock();
// writing first portion and updating variables
hasData.signalAll();
// if required then writing second portion and updating variables
hasData.signalAll();
But how to write a reader? Should it acquire only readLock
? But how it can wait for a signal then? If it aquires also a writeLock
then where is the supremacy fo read/write locking?
How to ensure required variables will not change during reading if they are protected only by writeLock
?
QUEUES DON'T MATCH THE TASK
This is the question about ReentrantReadWriteLock
.
The ReentrantReadWriteLock is indeed a bit confusing because the readLock doesn't have a condition. You have to upgrade to a writeLock in your reader only to wait for the condition.
In the writer.
writeLock.lock(); //locks all readers and writers
// do write data
hasData.signalAll();
writeLock.unlock();
In reader you do:
readLock.lock(); //blocks writers only
try{
if(!checkData()) //check if there's data, don't modify shared variables
{
readLock.unlock();
writeLock.lock(); // need to lock the writeLock to allow to use the condition.
// only one reader will get the lock, other readers will wait here
try{
while(!checkData()) // check if there' still no data
{
hasData.await(); //will unlock and re-lock after writer has signalled and unlocked.
}
readLock.lock(); // continue blocking writer
}
finally
{
writeLock.unlock(); //let other readers in
}
}
//there should be data now
readData(); // don't modify variables shared by readers.
}
finally
{
readlock.unlock(); //let writers in
}
For completeness, each unlock() should be in a finally block, of course.