In Java what is the performance of AtomicInteger compareAndSet() versus synchronized keyword?

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I was implementing a FIFO queue of requests instances (preallocated request objects for speed) and started with using the "synchronized" keyword on the add method. The method was quite short (check if room in fixed size buffer, then add value to array). Using visualVM it appeared the thread was blocking more often than I liked ("monitor" to be precise). So I converted the code over to use AtomicInteger values for things such as keeping track of the current size, then using compareAndSet() in while loops (as AtomicInteger does internally for methods such as incrementAndGet()). The code now looks quite a bit longer.

What I was wondering is what is the performance overhead of using synchronized and shorter code versus longer code without the synchronized keyword (so should never block on a lock).

Here is the old get method with the synchronized keyword:

public synchronized Request get()
{
    if (head == tail)
    {
        return null;
    }
    Request r = requests[head];
    head = (head + 1) % requests.length;
    return r;
}

Here is the new get method without the synchronized keyword:

public Request get()
{
    while (true)
    {
        int current = size.get();
        if (current <= 0)
        {
            return null;
        }
        if (size.compareAndSet(current, current - 1))
        {
            break;
        }
    }

    while (true)
    {
        int current = head.get();
        int nextHead = (current + 1) % requests.length;
        if (head.compareAndSet(current, nextHead))
        {
            return requests[current];
        }
    }
}

My guess was the synchronized keyword is worse because of the risk of blocking on the lock (potentially causing thread context switches etc), even though the code is shorter.

Thanks!

compare-and-swap locking java
4 Answers

Here's code for a busy wait lock.

public class BusyWaitLock
{
    private static final boolean LOCK_VALUE = true;
    private static final boolean UNLOCK_VALUE = false;
    private final static Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(BusyWaitLock.class);

    /**
     * @author Rod Moten
     *
     */
    public class BusyWaitLockException extends RuntimeException
    {

        /**
         * 
         */
        private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

        /**
         * @param message
         */
        public BusyWaitLockException(String message)
        {
            super(message);
        }



    }

    private AtomicBoolean lock = new AtomicBoolean(UNLOCK_VALUE);
    private final long maximumWaitTime ; 

    /**
     * Create a busy wait lock with that uses the default wait time of two minutes.
     */
    public BusyWaitLock()
    {
        this(1000 * 60 * 2); // default is two minutes)
    }

    /**
     * Create a busy wait lock with that uses the given value as the maximum wait time.
     * @param maximumWaitTime - a positive value that represents the maximum number of milliseconds that a thread will busy wait.
     */
    public BusyWaitLock(long maximumWaitTime)
    {
        if (maximumWaitTime < 1)
            throw new IllegalArgumentException (" Max wait time of " + maximumWaitTime + " is too low. It must be at least 1 millisecond.");
        this.maximumWaitTime = maximumWaitTime;
    }

    /**
     * 
     */
    public void lock ()
    {
        long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        long lastLogTime = startTime;
        int logMessageCount = 0;
        while (lock.compareAndSet(UNLOCK_VALUE, LOCK_VALUE)) {
            long waitTime = System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime;
            if (waitTime - lastLogTime > 5000) {
                log.debug("Waiting for lock. Log message # {}", logMessageCount++);
                lastLogTime = waitTime;
            }
            if (waitTime > maximumWaitTime) {
                log.warn("Wait time of {} exceed maximum wait time of {}", waitTime, maximumWaitTime);
                throw new BusyWaitLockException ("Exceeded maximum wait time of " + maximumWaitTime + " ms.");
            }
        }
    }

    public void unlock ()
    {
        lock.set(UNLOCK_VALUE);
    }
}
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