A synchronization mechanism for typed objects in a distributed system
Dominique Decouchant, Sacha Krakowiak, M. Meysembourg, Michel Riveill, Xavier Rousset de Pina · 1988
This paper presents a mechanism for synchronizing shared objets in a distributed system based on persistent, typed objects. This mechanism allows the synchronization constraints to be expressed as separate control clauses and to be factored for a class of objects. The interference of this mechanism with inheritance is examined and a solution is proposed. Examples of synchronized objects are provided and a semaphore-based implementation of the mechanism is described. 1. Introduction A major characteristic of many computer systems is the potential sharing of data by a number of concurrent activities. This sharing must be controlled in order to guarantee that the shared data remain in a consistent state. This problem has been known for a long time, and a number of solutions have been proposed. However, two new features have appeared in recent systems: object orientation, i.e. a specific mode of information structuring, mainly characterized by the association of operations to dat...