10.2.3 Semaphores

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► | 10 | Concurrency

10.1 | Threads
10.2 | Synchronization
10.3 | Thread-Local Storage
10.4 | Futures for Parallelism
10.5 | Places: Coarse-grained Parallelism

▼ | 10.2 | Synchronization

10.2.1 | Events
10.2.2 | Channels
10.2.3 | Semaphores
10.2.4 | Buffered Asynchronous Channels

On this page:

make-semaphore
semaphore?
semaphore-post
semaphore-wait
semaphore-try-wait?
semaphore-wait/ enable-break
semaphore-peek-evt
call-with-semaphore
call-with-semaphore/ enable-break

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##### 10.2.3`` Semaphores

A semaphore has an internal counter; when this counter is zero, the semaphore can block a thread’s execution (through semaphore-wait) until another thread increments the counter (using semaphore-post). The maximum value for a semaphore’s internal counter is platform-specific, but always at least 10000.

A semaphore’s counter is updated in a single-threaded manner, so that semaphores can be used for reliable synchronization. Semaphore waiting is fair: if a thread is blocked on a semaphore and the semaphore’s internal value is non-zero infinitely often, then the thread is eventually unblocked.

In addition to its use with semaphore-specific procedures, semaphores can be used as events; see Events.

( make-semaphore [init]) → semaphore?
init : exact-nonnegative-integer? = 0

Creates and returns a new semaphore with the counter initially set to init. If init-k is larger than a semaphore’s maximum internal counter value, the exn:fail exception is raised.

( semaphore? v) → boolean?
v : any/c

Returns #t if v is a semaphore created by make-semaphore, #f otherwise.

( semaphore-post sema) → void?
sema : semaphore?

Increments the semaphore’s internal counter and returns #<void>. If the semaphore’s internal counter has already reached its maximum value, the exn:fail exception is raised.

( semaphore-wait sema) → void?
sema : semaphore?

Blocks until the internal counter for semaphore sema is non-zero. When the counter is non-zero, it is decremented and semaphore-wait returns #<void>.

( semaphore-try-wait? sema) → boolean?
sema : semaphore?

Like semaphore-wait, but semaphore-try-wait? never blocks execution. If sema’s internal counter is zero, semaphore-try-wait? returns #f immediately without decrementing the counter. If sema’s counter is positive, it is decremented and #t is returned.

( semaphore-wait/enable-break sema) → void?
sema : semaphore?

Like semaphore-wait, but breaking is enabled (see Breaks) while waiting on sema. If breaking is disabled when semaphore-wait/enable-break is called, then either the semaphore’s counter is decremented or the exn:break exception is raised, but not both.

( semaphore-peek-evt sema) → evt?
sema : semaphore?

Creates and returns a new synchronizable event (for use with sync, for example) that is ready when sema is ready, but synchronizing the event does not decrement sema’s internal count.

( call-with-semaphore |  | sema |  |  |  |
|  | proc |  |  |  |
| [ | try-fail-thunk] |  |  |  |
|  | arg ...) |  | → |  | any

sema : semaphore?
proc : procedure?
try-fail-thunk : ( or/c (-> any) #f) = #f
arg : any/c

Waits on sema using semaphore-wait, calls proc with all args, and then posts to sema. A continuation barrier blocks full continuation jumps into or out of proc (see Prompts, Delimited Continuations, and Barriers), but escape jumps are allowed, and sema is posted on escape. If try-fail-thunk is provided and is not #f, then semaphore-try-wait? is called on sema instead of semaphore-wait, and try-fail-thunk is called if the wait fails.

( call-with-semaphore/enable-break |  | sema |  |  |  |
|  | proc |  |  |  |
| [ | try-fail-thunk] |  |  |  |
|  | arg ...) |  | → |  | any

sema : semaphore?
proc : procedure?
try-fail-thunk : ( or/c (-> any) #f) = #f
arg : any/c

Like call-with-semaphore, except that semaphore-wait/enable-break is used with sema in non-try mode. When try-fail-thunk is provided and not #f, then breaks are enabled around the use of semaphore-try-wait? on sema.
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