xtensor-stack / xtl

The x template library
BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License
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Dynamic bitset is not thread safe #240

Open JohanMabille opened 3 years ago

JohanMabille commented 3 years ago

Let's say we have two thread writing values into a dynamic bitset. If the thread tries to change bits stored in the same underlying integer, we may have a race condition in the following code:

    template <class B, bool C>
    inline void xbitset_reference<B, C>::set() noexcept
    {
        m_block |= m_mask;
    }

This line is equivalent to m_block = m_block | m_mask.

Here m_block is a reference to the underlying integer used to store a group of bits. The issue is that Thread_1 may compute m_block | m_mask then Thread_2 computes m_block | m_mask and assigns it to m_block. Then Thread_1 writes m_block and overwrites the bit previously computed by Thread_2.

SylvainCorlay commented 3 years ago

Thanks for the explanation!