NOTE

Fair ReentrantReadWriteLock

Fair read/write-lock scheduling, queued predecessors, reader grouping, writer progress, and fairness costs.

JavaCreated Updated 1 min readhistorical

This is a historical learning note and may contain outdated or incomplete understanding.

1. Fair Mode

Fair ReentrantReadWriteLock uses queue order to reduce barging by later readers or writers.

A group of readers can still proceed together when their acquisition is eligible and no earlier writer should take precedence.

2. Goal

The policy reduces starvation risk and makes acquisition order more predictable under contention.

3. Cost

Strictly honoring queued predecessors can reduce throughput compared with nonfair mode because newly running threads lose opportunistic acquisitions.

4. Implementation

The lock uses AQS shared/exclusive state to account for readers and the write owner. Exact bit layouts and queue methods are implementation details of a particular JDK; rely on documented semantics.

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