Deadlock Prevention: Wait/Wound/Die Algorithms

The algorithms below, by Rosenkrantz (1978),
    prevent the No Preemption condition.

Assign each process a global timestamp when it starts.
    No two processes should have same timestamp.

Basic idea: "When one process is about to block waiting for a resource that another process is using, a check is made to see which has a larger timestamp (i.e. is younger)."
    (Tanen95)

Somehow put timestamps on each process,
    providing the creation time of each process.

Suppose a process needs a resource
    already owned by another process.

• Determine relative ages of both processes.
• Decide if waiting process should
  • Preempt,
  • Wait,
  • Die, or
  • Wound
  the process that owns the resource.

The two different algorithms by Rosenkrantz (1978)
    use these ideas, as explained below:

1. The Wait-Die algorithm:
   Allow wait only if waiting process is older.
   Since timestamps increase in any chain of waiting processes,
       cycles are impossible.
   

   
   The Wait-Die algorithm kills the younger process.
       When the younger process restarts
           and requests the resource again,
       it may be killed once more.
   This is the less efficient of these two algorithms.

2. The Wound-Wait algorithm:
   Otherwise allow wait only if waiting process is younger.
   Here timestamps decrease in any chain of waiting process,
       so cycles are again impossible.
   It is wiser to give older processes priority.
   

   
   The Wound-Wait algorithm preempts the younger process.
       When the younger process re-requests resource,
           it has to wait for older process to finish.
   This is the better of the two algorithms.

Note: To avoid starvation,
    a process should not be assigned
        a new timestamp each time it restarts.

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Comments:
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