Shared buffer using boost::intrusive_ptr - boost

Question

I have a use case where one thread reads message into a large buffer and the distributes the processing to a bunch of threads. The buffer is shared by multiple threads after that. Its read-only and when the last thread finishes, the buffer has to be freed. The buffer is allocated from a lock-free slab allocator.
My initial design was to use shared_ptr for the buffer. But the buffer can be of different size. My way of getting around it was do something like this.
struct SharedBuffer {
SharedBuffer (uint16_t len, std::shared_ptr<void> ptr)
: _length(len), _buf(std::move(ptr))
{
}
uint8_t data () { return (uint8_t *)_buf.get(); }
uint16_t length
std::shared_ptr<void> _buf; // type-erase the shared_ptr as the SharedBuffer
// need to stored in some other structs
};
Now the allocator will allocate the shared_ptr like this:
SharedBuffer allocate (size_t size)
{
auto buf = std::allocate_shared<std::array<uint8_t, 16_K>>(myallocator);
return SharedBuffer{16_K, buf}; // type erase the std::array
}
And the SharedBuffer is enqueued to each thread who wants it.
Now I think, I am doing lot of stuff unnecessarily, I can sort of make do with boost::intrusive_ptr with the below scheme. Things are bit C'ish- as I am using variable size array. Here I have changed the slab allocator with a operator new() for the sake of simplicity. I wanted to run it by to see if this implementation is okay.
template <typename T>
inline int atomicIncrement (T* t)
{
return __atomic_add_fetch(&t->_ref, 1, __ATOMIC_ACQUIRE);
}
template <typename T>
inline int atomicDecrement (T* t)
{
return __atomic_sub_fetch(&t->_ref, 1, __ATOMIC_RELEASE);
}
class SharedBuffer {
public:
friend int atomicIncrement<SharedBuffer>(SharedBuffer*);
friend int atomicDecrement<SharedBuffer>(SharedBuffer*);
SharedBuffer(uint16_t len) : _length(len) {}
uint8_t *data ()
{
return &_data[0];
}
uint16_t length () const
{
return _length;
}
private:
int _ref{0};
const uint16_t _length;
uint8_t _data[];
};
using SharedBufferPtr = boost::intrusive_ptr<SharedBuffer>;
SharedBufferPtr allocate (size_t size)
{
// dummy implementation
void *p = ::operator new (size + sizeof(SharedBuffer));
// I am not explicitly constructing the array of uint8_t
return new (p) SharedBuffer(size);
}
void deallocate (SharedBuffer* sbuf)
{
sbuf->~SharedBuffer();
// dummy implementation
::operator delete ((void *)sbuf);
}
void intrusive_ptr_add_ref(SharedBuffer* sbuf)
{
atomicIncrement(sbuf);
}
void intrusive_ptr_release (SharedBuffer* sbuf)
{
if (atomicDecrement(sbuf) == 0) {
deallocate(sbuf);
}
}

Answer 1

I'd use the simpler implementation (using shared_ptr) unless you are avoiding specific problems (i.e. profile first).
Side Note: you can use boost::shared_pointer<> with boost::make_shared<T[]>(N), which is being [added to the standard library in c++20.
Note that allocate_shared already embeds the control block into the same allocation like you do with the intrusive approach.
Finally, I'd use std::atomic_int so you have a clear contract that cannot (accidentally) be used wrong. At the same time, it'll remove the remaining bit of complexity.