head
- position of the first element in the queuelast
- position less than or equal to the first empty entrynull
, then some element, and finally the special value REMOVED
head
increase monotonically from 0 until the array lengthlast
eventually points to the first empty entry (eventually fast)Support data structure is any immutable data structure into which we can push single-shot queues.
The support data structure must be a sequence, i.e. it must retain order.
Dequeue must occasionally steal the support data structure from the enqueue (right) side.
Left support structure non-empty, no need to steal.
What about snapshots?
It's hard to get a consistent view of a fast-moving object...
...unless you can freeze it.
How to atomically prevent subsequent enqueue and dequeue operations?
The freeze operation is as good as a snapshot.
After a freeze, the previously mutable data structure becomes an immutable data structure.
If we can find an immutable data structure that:
Then we have an efficient lock-free concatenation operation.
Conc-Trees as the support data structure:
More information in the paper.