3.3 The Dining Philosophers Scenario

The dining philosophers scenario is a classic which is structured as follows. Five philosophers, numbered zero to four, are sitting at a round table, thinking. As time passes, different individuals become hungry and decide to eat. There is a platter of noodles on the table but each philosopher only has one chopstick to use. In order to eat, they must share chopsticks. The chopstick to the right of each philosopher (as they sit facing the table) has the same number as that philosopher.

Figure 3-1 Dining Philosophers

Each philosopher first reaches for his own chopstick which is the one with his number. When he has his assigned chopstick, he reaches for the chopstick assigned to his neighbor. After he has both chopsticks, he can eat. After eating, he returns the chopsticks to their original positions on the table, one on either side. The process is repeated until there are no more noodles.

3.3.1 How the Philosophers Can Deadlock

An actual deadlock occurs when every philosopher is holding his own chopstick and waiting for the one from his neighbor to become available:

• Philosopher 0 is holding chopstick 0, but is waiting for chopstick 1

• Philosopher 1 is holding chopstick 1, but is waiting for chopstick 2

• Philosopher 2 is holding chopstick 2, but is waiting for chopstick 3

• Philosopher 3 is holding chopstick 3, but is waiting for chopstick 4

• Philosopher 4 is holding chopstick 4, but is waiting for chopstick 0

In this situation, nobody can eat and the philosophers are in a deadlock. Run the program a number of times. You will see that the program might hang sometimes, and run to completion at other times. The program might hang as shown in the following sample run:

prompt% cc din_philo.c
prompt% a.out
Philosopher 0 is done thinking and now ready to eat.
Philosopher 2 is done thinking and now ready to eat.
Philosopher 2: got right  chopstick 2
Philosopher 2: got left chopstick 3
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 4 is done thinking and now ready to eat.
Philosopher 4: got right  chopstick 4
Philosopher 2: eating.
Philosopher 3 is done thinking and now ready to eat.
Philosopher 1 is done thinking and now ready to eat.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 3: got right  chopstick 3
Philosopher 2: got right  chopstick 2
Philosopher 1: got right  chopstick 1
(hang)

Execution terminated by pressing CTRL-C

3.3.2 Introducing a Sleep Time for Philosopher 1

One way to avoid deadlocks is for Philosopher 1 to wait before reaching for his chopstick. In terms of the code, he can be put to sleep for a specified amount of time (sleep_seconds) before reaching for his chopstick. If he sleeps long enough, then the program may finish without any actual deadlock. You can specify the number of seconds he sleeps as an argument to the executable. If you do not specify an argument, the philosopher does not sleep.

The following pseudo-code shows the logic for each philosopher:

   while (there is still food on the table)
      {
        if (sleep argument is specified and I am philosopher #1)
           {
             sleep specified amount of time
           }

        grab right fork
        grab left fork
        eat some food
        put down left fork
        put down right fork 
      }

The following listing shows one run of the program in which Philosopher 1 waits 30 seconds before reaching for his chopstick. The program runs to completion and all five philosophers finish eating.

% a.out 30
Philosopher 0 is done thinking and now ready to eat.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 4 is done thinking and now ready to eat.
Philosopher 4: got right  chopstick 4
Philosopher 3 is done thinking and now ready to eat.
Philosopher 3: got right  chopstick 3
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 2 is done thinking and now ready to eat.
Philosopher 2: got right  chopstick 2
Philosopher 1 is done thinking and now ready to eat.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
...
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0: got right  chopstick 0
Philosopher 0: got left chopstick 1
Philosopher 0: eating.
Philosopher 0 is done eating.
Philosopher 4: got left chopstick 0
Philosopher 4: eating.
Philosopher 4 is done eating.
Philosopher 3: got left chopstick 4
Philosopher 3: eating.
Philosopher 3 is done eating.
Philosopher 2: got left chopstick 3
Philosopher 2: eating.
Philosopher 2 is done eating.
Philosopher 1: got right  chopstick 1
Philosopher 1: got left chopstick 2
Philosopher 1: eating.
Philosopher 1 is done eating.
%

Execution terminated normally

Try running the program several times and specifying different sleep arguments. What happens when Philosopher 1 waits only a short time before reaching for his chopstick? How about when he waits longer? Try specifying different sleep arguments to the executable a.out. Rerun the program with or without a sleep argument several times. Sometimes the program hangs, while it runs to completion at other times. Whether the program hangs or not depends on the scheduling of threads and the timings of requests for locks by the threads.