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Bounded delay for a free address

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Abstract

The problem is to let n processes concurrently and repeatedly search for free addresses in a range of m addresses. The search must be wait-free: a searching process finds an address in a bounded number of steps. Three solutions are presented. The first one has large atomic actions. The second one is only correct if m ≧ (r + 1) · n where r is the maximum number of used addresses. The third solution is always partially correct. It is wait-free if m > r + 2 · n. This solution has a worst-case waiting time quadratic in n and an amortized waiting time linear in n, even linear in the number of active processes.

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  1. Department of Mathematics and Computing Science, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Postbox 800, 9700 AV, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Wim H. Hesselink

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  1. Wim H. Hesselink
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Correspondence to Wim H. Hesselink.

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Hesselink, W.H. Bounded delay for a free address. Acta Informatica 33, 233–254 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/s002360050042

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