Inter-entry selection: Non-determinism and explicit control mechanisms

Many concurrent programming languages provide selection statements, which allow a task to select one of several entries to service. The choice as to which entry will be selected, if more than one has pending invocations, is generally defined to be non-deterministic. However, such non-deterministic i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Computer languages 1992, Vol.17 (4), p.269-282
Main Authors: Olsson, Ronald A, McNamee, Carole M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Computer science
control theory
systems
Concurrent programming
Concurrent programming languages
Exact sciences and technology
Non-determinism
Preference control
Programming languages
Rendezvous
Software
Synchronization
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Summary:Many concurrent programming languages provide selection statements, which allow a task to select one of several entries to service. The choice as to which entry will be selected, if more than one has pending invocations, is generally defined to be non-deterministic. However, such non-deterministic inter-entry selection can result in undesirable program behavior. This paper examines the problems arising from such behavior and the existing approaches to remedy those problems. It indicates the inherent shortcomings of these approaches and purposes a new, more expressive extension of these approaches that remedies these shortcomings. This paper also considers how the different approaches can be implemented.
ISSN:0096-0551
DOI:10.1016/0096-0551(92)90016-G