semaphores: Shared Memory Atomic Operations

In semaphore: Shared Memory Atomic Operations

Shared Memory Atomic Operations

Description

A semaphore is an integer that the operating system keeps track of. Any process that knows the semaphore's identifier can increment or decrement its value, though it cannot be decremented below zero.

When the semaphore is zero, calling decrement_semaphore(wait = FALSE) will return FALSE whereas decrement_semaphore(wait = TRUE) will block until the semaphore is incremented by another process. If multiple processes are blocked, a single call to increment_semaphore() will only unblock one of the blocked processes.

It is possible to wait for a specific amount of time, for example, decrement_semaphore(wait = 10) will wait for 10 seconds. If the semaphore is incremented within those 10 seconds, the function will immediately return TRUE. Otherwise it will return FALSE at the 10 second mark.

Usage

create_semaphore(id = NULL, value = 0, cleanup = TRUE)

increment_semaphore(id)

decrement_semaphore(id, wait = TRUE)

remove_semaphore(id)

Arguments

id	A semaphore identifier (string). create_semaphore() defaults to generating a random identifier. A custom id should be at most 251 characters and must not contain slashes (/).
value	The initial value of the semaphore.
cleanup	Remove the semaphore when R session exits.
wait	Maximum time (in seconds) to block the process while waiting for the semaphore. TRUE maps to 0; FALSE maps to Inf. Fractional seconds allowed (e.g. wait=0.001).

Value

• create_semaphore() - The created semaphore's identifier (string), invisibly unless id=NULL.

• increment_semaphore() - TRUE on success or FALSE on error, invisibly.

• decrement_semaphore() - TRUE if the decrement was successful or FALSE otherwise, invisibly when wait=Inf.

• remove_semaphore() - TRUE on success or FALSE on error.

Examples

    library(semaphore) 
    
    s <- create_semaphore()
    print(s)
    
    increment_semaphore(s)
    decrement_semaphore(s, wait = FALSE)
    decrement_semaphore(s, wait = FALSE)
    
    remove_semaphore(s)

semaphore documentation built on April 4, 2025, 4:14 a.m.