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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Robert Stroud
Many researchers have suggested using atomic data types to maintain data consistency in a system. The use of an object-oriented approach should allow atomicity to be achieved in a modular, encapsulated fashion. However, in practice, implementing user-defined atomic data types is a difficult task. Existing systems fail to achieve a clean separation between application code and synchronisation code, and thus make it very hard for users to make changes to a system to meet their particular needs. In this paper, we present a meta-object protocol approach to implementing atomic data types. In this approach application code is implemented at the base-level, whilst synchronisation code is implemented at the meta-level in the form of meta-objects. New synchronisation schemes can be provided for particular applications by introducing new meta-objects into the system without a need to making any change at the base-level. Furthermore, it is possible for an atomic data object to adapt its synchronisation scheme dynamically by changing its meta-object at run-time.
Author(s): Stroud RJ, Wu Z
Publication type: Report
Publication status: Published
Series Title: Department of Computing Science Technical Report Series
Year: 1995
Pages: 28
Report Number: 512
Institution: Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Place Published: Newcastle upon Tyne
URL: http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/publications/trs/papers/512.pdf
