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Encyclopedia of Parallel Computing pp 1476–1479Cite as

Path Expressions

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  • 152 Accesses

Synonyms

Coordination; Concurrency control; Mutual exclusion; Process synchronization

Definition

A path expression is a declaration of the permitted sequences of operations on an object that is shared by parallel processes.

For example, consider a path expression based on a regular expression notation for a shared buffer. The shared buffer may have operations read and write that may only occur in a sequence specified by the regular expression (write; read)∗ where a write to the buffer may be followed by a read before it can be repeated. The reads and writes are mutually exclusive. The expression indicates the sequence of actions that may occur independent of the number of processes or the order in which the processes invoke the operations.

Discussion

Path expressions provide a declarative specification of synchronization and coordination of parallel processes performing operations on an object in parallel computing systems [4]. They provide a language mechanism to separate the...

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Bibliography

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 201 N. Goodwin Ave., 61801-2302, Urbana, IL, USA

    Roy H. Campbell Prof.

Authors
  1. Roy H. Campbell Prof.
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    David Padua

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Campbell, R.H. (2011). Path Expressions. In: Padua, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Parallel Computing. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09766-4_283

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