livelock

English edit

Etymology edit

(ca. 1971) live +‎ lock; punning antonym for deadlock.

Pronunciation edit

Audio (UK) (file)
Hyphenation: live‧lock

Noun edit

livelock (countable and uncountable, plural livelocks)

(computing) A state resembling deadlock in which various computational processes are constantly changing but never reach a point where any of them can proceed.
- 2000, Douglas Lea, Concurrent Programming in Java, Addison-Wesley Professional, →ISBN, page 193:
  However, this can lead to livelock—the optimistic analog of indefinite blocking in which methods continuously spin without making any further progress.
- 2003, Mark Pearce, Comprehensive VB .NET Debugging, →ISBN, page 439:
  A process is considered to be in a state of livelock when thread code is still executing, but two or more threads are in a never-ending cycle with each other and no useful work is being done.

Verb edit

livelock (third-person singular simple present livelocks, present participle livelocking, simple past and past participle livelocked)

(computing) To enter a state of livelock.

References edit

“livelock”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.