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+# Introduction: the sleep module
+
+The code in this module governs when worker threads should go to
+sleep. The system used in this code was introduced in [Rayon RFC #5].
+There is also a [video walkthrough] available. Both of those may be
+valuable resources to understanding the code, though naturally they
+will also grow stale over time. The comments in this file are
+extracted from the RFC and meant to be kept up to date.
+
+[Rayon RFC #5]: https://github.com/rayon-rs/rfcs/pull/5
+[video walkthrough]: https://youtu.be/HvmQsE5M4cY
+
+# The `Sleep` struct
+
+The `Sleep` struct is embedded into each registry. It performs several functions:
+
+* It tracks when workers are awake or asleep.
+* It decides how long a worker should look for work before it goes to sleep,
+ via a callback that is invoked periodically from the worker's search loop.
+* It is notified when latches are set, jobs are published, or other
+ events occur, and it will go and wake the appropriate threads if
+ they are sleeping.
+
+# Thread states
+
+There are three main thread states:
+
+* An **active** thread is one that is actively executing a job.
+* An **idle** thread is one that is searching for work to do. It will be
+ trying to steal work or pop work from the global injector queue.
+* A **sleeping** thread is one that is blocked on a condition variable,
+ waiting to be awoken.
+
+We sometimes refer to the final two states collectively as **inactive**.
+Threads begin as idle but transition to idle and finally sleeping when
+they're unable to find work to do.
+
+## Sleepy threads
+
+There is one other special state worth mentioning. During the idle state,
+threads can get **sleepy**. A sleepy thread is still idle, in that it is still
+searching for work, but it is *about* to go to sleep after it does one more
+search (or some other number, potentially). When a thread enters the sleepy
+state, it signals (via the **jobs event counter**, described below) that it is
+about to go to sleep. If new work is published, this will lead to the counter
+being adjusted. When the thread actually goes to sleep, it will (hopefully, but
+not guaranteed) see that the counter has changed and elect not to sleep, but
+instead to search again. See the section on the **jobs event counter** for more
+details.
+
+# The counters
+
+One of the key structs in the sleep module is `AtomicCounters`, found in
+`counters.rs`. It packs three counters into one atomically managed value:
+
+* Two **thread counters**, which track the number of threads in a particular state.
+* The **jobs event counter**, which is used to signal when new work is available.
+ It (sort of) tracks the number of jobs posted, but not quite, and it can rollover.
+
+## Thread counters
+
+There are two thread counters, one that tracks **inactive** threads and one that
+tracks **sleeping** threads. From this, one can deduce the number of threads
+that are idle by subtracting sleeping threads from inactive threads. We track
+the counters in this way because it permits simpler atomic operations. One can
+increment the number of sleeping threads (and thus decrease the number of idle
+threads) simply by doing one atomic increment, for example. Similarly, one can
+decrease the number of sleeping threads (and increase the number of idle
+threads) through one atomic decrement.
+
+These counters are adjusted as follows:
+
+* When a thread enters the idle state: increment the inactive thread counter.
+* When a thread enters the sleeping state: increment the sleeping thread counter.
+* When a thread awakens a sleeping thread: decrement the sleeping thread counter.
+ * Subtle point: the thread that *awakens* the sleeping thread decrements the
+ counter, not the thread that is *sleeping*. This is because there is a delay
+ between siganling a thread to wake and the thread actually waking:
+ decrementing the counter when awakening the thread means that other threads
+ that may be posting work will see the up-to-date value that much faster.
+* When a thread finds work, exiting the idle state: decrement the inactive
+ thread counter.
+
+## Jobs event counter
+
+The final counter is the **jobs event counter**. The role of this counter is to
+help sleepy threads detect when new work is posted in a lightweight fashion. In
+its simplest form, we would simply have a counter that gets incremented each
+time a new job is posted. This way, when a thread gets sleepy, it could read the
+counter, and then compare to see if the value has changed before it actually
+goes to sleep. But this [turns out to be too expensive] in practice, so we use a
+somewhat more complex scheme.
+
+[turns out to be too expensive]: https://github.com/rayon-rs/rayon/pull/746#issuecomment-624802747
+
+The idea is that the counter toggles between two states, depending on whether
+its value is even or odd (or, equivalently, on the value of its low bit):
+
+* Even -- If the low bit is zero, then it means that there has been no new work
+ since the last thread got sleepy.
+* Odd -- If the low bit is one, then it means that new work was posted since
+ the last thread got sleepy.
+
+### New work is posted
+
+When new work is posted, we check the value of the counter: if it is even,
+then we increment it by one, so that it becomes odd.
+
+### Worker thread gets sleepy
+
+When a worker thread gets sleepy, it will read the value of the counter. If the
+counter is odd, it will increment the counter so that it is even. Either way, it
+remembers the final value of the counter. The final value will be used later,
+when the thread is going to sleep. If at that time the counter has not changed,
+then we can assume no new jobs have been posted (though note the remote
+possibility of rollover, discussed in detail below).
+
+# Protocol for a worker thread to post work
+
+The full protocol for a thread to post work is as follows
+
+* If the work is posted into the injection queue, then execute a seq-cst fence (see below).
+* Load the counters, incrementing the JEC if it is even so that it is odd.
+* Check if there are idle threads available to handle this new job. If not,
+ and there are sleeping threads, then wake one or more threads.
+
+# Protocol for a worker thread to fall asleep
+
+The full protocol for a thread to fall asleep is as follows:
+
+* After completing all its jobs, the worker goes idle and begins to
+ search for work. As it searches, it counts "rounds". In each round,
+ it searches all other work threads' queues, plus the 'injector queue' for
+ work injected from the outside. If work is found in this search, the thread
+ becomes active again and hence restarts this protocol from the top.
+* After a certain number of rounds, the thread "gets sleepy" and executes `get_sleepy`
+ above, remembering the `final_value` of the JEC. It does one more search for work.
+* If no work is found, the thread atomically:
+ * Checks the JEC to see that it has not changed from `final_value`.
+ * If it has, then the thread goes back to searchin for work. We reset to
+ just before we got sleepy, so that we will do one more search
+ before attending to sleep again (rather than searching for many rounds).
+ * Increments the number of sleeping threads by 1.
+* The thread then executes a seq-cst fence operation (see below).
+* The thread then does one final check for injected jobs (see below). If any
+ are available, it returns to the 'pre-sleepy' state as if the JEC had changed.
+* The thread waits to be signaled. Once signaled, it returns to the idle state.
+
+# The jobs event counter and deadlock
+
+As described in the section on the JEC, the main concern around going to sleep
+is avoiding a race condition wherein:
+
+* Thread A looks for work, finds none.
+* Thread B posts work but sees no sleeping threads.
+* Thread A goes to sleep.
+
+The JEC protocol largely prevents this, but due to rollover, this prevention is
+not complete. It is possible -- if unlikely -- that enough activity occurs for
+Thread A to observe the same JEC value that it saw when getting sleepy. If the
+new work being published came from *inside* the thread-pool, then this race
+condition isn't too harmful. It means that we have fewer workers processing the
+work then we should, but we won't deadlock. This seems like an acceptable risk
+given that this is unlikely in practice.
+
+However, if the work was posted as an *external* job, that is a problem. In that
+case, it's possible that all of our workers could go to sleep, and the external
+job would never get processed. To prevent that, the sleeping protocol includes
+one final check to see if the injector queue is empty before fully falling
+asleep. Note that this final check occurs **after** the number of sleeping
+threads has been incremented. We are not concerned therefore with races against
+injections that occur after that increment, only before.
+
+Unfortunately, there is one rather subtle point concerning this final check:
+we wish to avoid the possibility that:
+
+* work is pushed into the injection queue by an outside thread X,
+* the sleepy thread S sees the JEC but it has rolled over and is equal
+* the sleepy thread S reads the injection queue but does not see the work posted by X.
+
+This is possible because the C++ memory model typically offers guarantees of the
+form "if you see the access A, then you must see those other accesses" -- but it
+doesn't guarantee that you will see the access A (i.e., if you think of
+processors with independent caches, you may be operating on very out of date
+cache state).
+
+## Using seq-cst fences to prevent deadlock
+
+To overcome this problem, we have inserted two sequentially consistent fence
+operations into the protocols above:
+
+* One fence occurs after work is posted into the injection queue, but before the
+ counters are read (including the number of sleeping threads).
+ * Note that no fence is needed for work posted to internal queues, since it is ok
+ to overlook work in that case.
+* One fence occurs after the number of sleeping threads is incremented, but
+ before the injection queue is read.
+
+### Proof sketch
+
+What follows is a "proof sketch" that the protocol is deadlock free. We model
+two relevant bits of memory, the job injector queue J and the atomic counters C.
+
+Consider the actions of the injecting thread:
+
+* PushJob: Job is injected, which can be modeled as an atomic write to J with release semantics.
+* PushFence: A sequentially consistent fence is executed.
+* ReadSleepers: The counters C are read (they may also be incremented, but we just consider the read that comes first).
+
+Meanwhile, the sleepy thread does the following:
+
+* IncSleepers: The number of sleeping threads is incremented, which is atomic exchange to C.
+* SleepFence: A sequentially consistent fence is executed.
+* ReadJob: We look to see if the queue is empty, which is a read of J with acquire semantics.
+
+Either PushFence or SleepFence must come first:
+
+* If PushFence comes first, then PushJob must be visible to ReadJob.
+* If SleepFence comes first, then IncSleepers is visible to ReadSleepers. \ No newline at end of file