CON38-J. Ensure atomicity of thread-safe code

Thread-safety guarantees that no two threads can simultaneously access or modify some shared data. However, if two or more operations need to be performed safely, it becomes necessary to enforce atomicity. It is possible for two threads to read some shared value, independently perform operations on it and induce a race condition while storing the final result. Programmers usually assume that a thread-safe Collection does not require explicit synchronization which can be a misleading practice. It follows that a thread-safe Collection may not ensure program correctness.

Noncompliant code Example

This noncompliant example is comprised of an ArrayList collection which is non-thread-safe by default. There is however, a way around this drawback. Most thread-unsafe classes have a synchronized thread-safe version, synchronizedList being a good substitute for ArrayList. One pitfall described in the coming lines, remains to be addressed even when the particular Collection offers thread-safety benefits.

The operations within the run() method are non-atomic. That is, it is possible that the first thread will operate on data that it does not expect. The superfluous data may be fed in by other threads while the first thread has not finished processing. Conversely, since the toArray() method produces a copy of the parameter, it is possible that the first thread operates on stale data [[JavaThreads 04]]. The code's output with varying array lengths signifies a race condition. Such omissions can be pernicious in methods that use complex formulas.

class RaceCollection implements Runnable {
  private List<InetAddress> ips = Collections.synchronizedList(new ArrayList<InetAddress>());
  
  public void addIPAddress(InetAddress ia) {
    synchronized(ips) {
      ips.add(ia);
    }
  }

  public void removeIPAddress(InetAddress ia) {
    synchronized(ips) {
      ips.remove(ia);
    }
  }

  public void nonAtomic() throws InterruptedException {
    InetAddress[] ia;   

    synchronized(ips) {
      ia = (InetAddress[]) ips.toArray(new InetAddress[0]);     
    }
         
    System.out.println("Number of IPs: " + ia.length); 
  }
  
  public void run() {
    try {
      addIPAddress(InetAddress.getLocalHost());
      nonAtomic();
    } catch (UnknownHostException e) { }
      catch (InterruptedException e) { }		
  }
  
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    RaceCollection rc1 = new RaceCollection();
    for(int i=0;i<2;i++)
      new Thread(rc1).start();	  	  
  }
}

Compliant Solution

To eliminate the race condition, ensure atomicity. This can be achieved by including all statements that use the array list within the synchronized block. This technique is also called client-side locking. [[Goetz 06]]

synchronized(ips) {
  ia = (InetAddress[]) ips.toArray(new InetAddress[0]);           
  System.out.println("Number of IPs: " + ia.length); 
}

Note that this advice applies to all Collection classes including the thread-safe hash tables. Enumerations of the objects of a Collection and iterators also require explicit synchronization on the Collection object or any single lock object.

Although expensive, CopyOnWriteArrayList and CopyOnWriteArraySet classes are sometimes used to create copies of the core Collection so that iterators do not fail with a runtime exception when some data in the Collection is modified. These however, suffer from the toArray dilemma (operating on stale data) described earlier in this rule. Consequently their use is limited to boosting performance in code where the writes are fewer (or non-existent) as compared to the reads [[JavaThreads 04]]. In all other cases they must be avoided.

Compliant Solution

Composition offers more benefits than the previous solution at the cost of a slight performance penalty (refer to [OBJ01-J. Understand how a superclass can affect a subclass] for details on how to implement composition). This allows the CompositeCollection class to use its own intrinsic lock in a way that is completely independent of the lock of the underlying list class. This provides consistent locking even when the underlying list is not thread-safe or when it changes its locking policy. [[Goetz 06]]

class CompositeCollection implements Runnable {
  private List<InetAddress> ips = Collections.synchronizedList(new ArrayList<InetAddress>());
  public CompositeCollection(List<InetAddress> list) {
	  this.ips = list;
  }
  
  public synchronized void addIPAddress(InetAddress ia) {
      ips.add(ia);
  }

  /* other methods */

  public synchronized void atomic() throws InterruptedException {
    InetAddress[] ia;   
    ia = (InetAddress[]) ips.toArray(new InetAddress[0]);     
    System.out.println("Number of IPs: " + ia.length); 
  }
}

Yet another method is to extend the base class and synchronize on the method that is desired to be atomic, however, it is not recommended because it goes against the spirit of limiting class extension ([OBJ33-J. Limit the extensibility of classes and methods to only trusted subclasses]). Moreover, Goetz et al. [[Goetz 06]] cite other reasons:

Extension is more fragile than adding code directly to a class, because the implementation of the synchronization policy is now distributed over multiple, separately maintained source files. If the underlying class were to change its synchronization policy by choosing a different lock to guard its state variables, the subclass would subtly and silently break, because it no longer used the right lock to control concurrent access to the base class's state.

Risk Assessment

Non-atomic code can induce race conditions and affect program correctness.

Automated Detection

TODO

Related Vulnerabilities

Search for vulnerabilities resulting from the violation of this rule on the CERT website.

References

[[API 06]] Class Vector, Class WeakReference
[[JavaThreads 04]] 8.2 "Synchronization and Collection Classes"
[[Goetz 06]] 4.4.1. Client-side Locking and 4.4.2. Composition

CON37-J. Never apply a lock to methods making network calls      09. Concurrency (CON)      CON39-J. Ensure atomicity of 64-bit operations