Hi Andrew,

here comes a little input from me about deadlock detection.

On 2/27/09 8:28 PM, Andrew Francis wrote:

I envision the deadlock detector used as follows: a developer believes
they have deadlock. They include the detection module and use the
register() method to tell the detector which channels a tasklet uses.
The programme is executed.

Yes.
This is what I would do pretty differently.
Not using a register method to be called by hand.
Instead, I would overwrite the definition of channels
and modify the channel methods to do the deadlock detection.

When stackless.run() prematurely returns, the detector goes through the
graph, looking for cycles, returning a list of tuples, describing the
tasklets and channels in question.

I believe this would be more helpful if done during a channel
action, because you then know exactly, which action caused
the deadlock, in the end.

...

To help detect hold-and-wait and circular wait, I create a wait-for
graph. Wait-for graphs are described in section 16.6 of Silberschatz's
"Database System Concepts."

Got no time to look this up, but I believe you know what you are saying.

...

Once the graph is completed, I use a variation of the graph traversal
algorithm in Sedgewick. If a cycle is found, the detector stops and the
path is returned. I imagine something like pygraph(?) could be used to
visual the deadlocked tasklets and channels.

Would it be possible to do that traversal incrementally, updating
on every channel action?

Anyhow I have included the code and a simple example. I suspect the
detector is naive to catch every case (i know it won't case the of a
single tasklet waiting on a single channel). Still I think the detection
module would be useful to a new Stackless programmer. Maybe I could use
stuff like class decorators to make the module easier to use. Anyhow
comments could be appreciated. Enjoy!

Well, isn't that simple approach sufficient: tracking all actions
until the deadlock occours, and that's about it?
Maybe I was too quick with something :-)

Just my 2 cent - chris
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