In my day to day tasks, synchronization primitives are used quite often. ObjC had the @synchronized attribute for methods. I didn’t find anything about this in swift evolution, so I thought i bring it up here. I think it would quite easily be possible to introduce a synchronized qualifier for struct/class objects that automatically synthesize a semaphore variable on the object and use it to lock said method. Here is an example of how that would work
Without the synchronized attribute (code written in mail, not compiled):
Swift does not currently have any special support for concurrency. That will undoubtedly come in some future version of Swift, and atomic operations and data are pretty common use-cases which I’m sure the community will want covered.
- Karl
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On 12. Jun 2017, at 11:10, Erik Aigner via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:
In my day to day tasks, synchronization primitives are used quite often. ObjC had the @synchronized attribute for methods. I didn’t find anything about this in swift evolution, so I thought i bring it up here. I think it would quite easily be possible to introduce a synchronized qualifier for struct/class objects that automatically synthesize a semaphore variable on the object and use it to lock said method. Here is an example of how that would work
Without the synchronized attribute (code written in mail, not compiled):
With a serial queue guarding the function or concurrent queues dumping into a serial target queue, DispatchQueue.sync(execute:) can be used as a synchronizing primitive suitable for most workflows. Have you tried exploring libDispatch outside of Semaphores?
~Robert Widmann
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On Jun 12, 2017, at 2:10 AM, Erik Aigner via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:
In my day to day tasks, synchronization primitives are used quite often. ObjC had the @synchronized attribute for methods. I didn’t find anything about this in swift evolution, so I thought i bring it up here. I think it would quite easily be possible to introduce a synchronized qualifier for struct/class objects that automatically synthesize a semaphore variable on the object and use it to lock said method. Here is an example of how that would work
Without the synchronized attribute (code written in mail, not compiled):
I'd prefer to see block-scoped synchronization rather than whole-method-only; it gives much more flexibility.
Note that you can use the objc synchronization feature with reference types:
// Or (_ obj:...) if you prefer the label-less objc style)
func synchronized(on obj: AnyObject, do block: () throws -> Void) rethrows {
objc_sync_enter(obj)
defer {
objc_sync_exit(obj)
}
try block()
}
// or synchronized(self)
synchronized(on: self) {
// do something
}
try synchronized(on: self) {
throw NSError()
}
Not 100% sure this works with bridged reference types (e.g. Array); definitely doesn't work with Int. Use a dummy NSObject() if needed.
That said, I'd love to see a swift-native solution that works with value types (and doesn't rely on the objc runtime).
···
On Jun 12, 2017, at 2:10 AM, Erik Aigner via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:
[...]
With synchronized attribute (the semaphore/wait/deferred-signal is synthesized by Swift automatically)
class Obj {
synchronized func method() {
// semaphore is synthesized automatically, do something…
}
}
It's relatively unlikely that Swift's concurrency model, once it gains one, will look all that similar to Objective-C's. For example*, if Swift were to adopt a shared-nothing model where heap storage was per-thread and could only be accessed by another thread by copying or moving the value to its heap, then a 'synchronized' construct wouldn't be applicable. Until Swift does have a concurrency model, it's probably best to focus on library-level solutions like libdispatch.
David
*and this is just an example, there haven't been any concrete proposals for a direction on concurrency beyond a few old speculative drafts you can find in the repository
···
On Jun 12, 2017, at 2:10 AM, Erik Aigner via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:
In my day to day tasks, synchronization primitives are used quite often. ObjC had the @synchronized attribute for methods. I didn’t find anything about this in swift evolution, so I thought i bring it up here. I think it would quite easily be possible to introduce a synchronized qualifier for struct/class objects that automatically synthesize a semaphore variable on the object and use it to lock said method. Here is an example of how that would work
Without the synchronized attribute (code written in mail, not compiled):
Synchronization would indeed be an area of improvement for Swift. I would, however, add that the primitive should also work with more than just functions. For example, it should play nicely with closures and should most definitely work with properties (to synchronize access for a given resource value). Furthermore, I would like to suggest a change of name from ‘synchronized’ to ‘exclusive’, as it fits more tightly with the new exclusivity rules in Swift 4.
···
On Jun 13, 2017, 1:39 PM -0400, Kevin Nattinger via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org>, wrote:
I'd prefer to see block-scoped synchronization rather than whole-method-only; it gives much more flexibility.
Note that you can use the objc synchronization feature with reference types:
// Or (_ obj:...) if you prefer the label-less objc style)
func synchronized(on obj: AnyObject, do block: () throws -> Void) rethrows {
objc_sync_enter(obj)
defer {
objc_sync_exit(obj)
}
try block()
}
// or synchronized(self)
synchronized(on: self) {
// do something
}
try synchronized(on: self) {
throw NSError()
}
Not 100% sure this works with bridged reference types (e.g. Array); definitely doesn't work with Int. Use a dummy NSObject() if needed.
That said, I'd love to see a swift-native solution that works with value types (and doesn't rely on the objc runtime).
> On Jun 12, 2017, at 2:10 AM, Erik Aigner via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:
> [...]
> With synchronized attribute (the semaphore/wait/deferred-signal is synthesized by Swift automatically)
>
> class Obj {
>
> synchronized func method() {
> // semaphore is synthesized automatically, do something…
> }
> }
>