pthreads: thread starvation caused by quick re-locking

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You can build a FIFO “ticket lock” on top of pthreads mutexes, along these lines:

#include <pthread.h>

typedef struct ticket_lock {
    pthread_cond_t cond;
    pthread_mutex_t mutex;
    unsigned long queue_head, queue_tail;
} ticket_lock_t;

#define TICKET_LOCK_INITIALIZER { PTHREAD_COND_INITIALIZER, PTHREAD_MUTEX_INITIALIZER }

void ticket_lock(ticket_lock_t *ticket)
{
    unsigned long queue_me;

    pthread_mutex_lock(&ticket->mutex);
    queue_me = ticket->queue_tail++;
    while (queue_me != ticket->queue_head)
    {
        pthread_cond_wait(&ticket->cond, &ticket->mutex);
    }
    pthread_mutex_unlock(&ticket->mutex);
}

void ticket_unlock(ticket_lock_t *ticket)
{
    pthread_mutex_lock(&ticket->mutex);
    ticket->queue_head++;
    pthread_cond_broadcast(&ticket->cond);
    pthread_mutex_unlock(&ticket->mutex);
}

Under this kind of scheme, no low-level pthreads mutex is held while a thread is within the ticketlock protected critical section, allowing other threads to join the queue.

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