Win32 Read/Write Lock Using Only Critical Sections

Question

I have to implement a read/write lock in C++ using the Win32 api as part of a project at work. All of the existing solutions use kernel objects (semaphores and mutexes) tha

Answer 1

I wrote the following code using only critical sections.

class ReadWriteLock {
    volatile LONG writelockcount;
    volatile LONG readlockcount;
    CRITICAL_SECTION cs;
public:
    ReadWriteLock() {
        InitializeCriticalSection(&cs);
        writelockcount = 0;
        readlockcount = 0;
    }
    ~ReadWriteLock() {
        DeleteCriticalSection(&cs);
    }
    void AcquireReaderLock() {        
    retry:
        while (writelockcount) {
            Sleep(0);
        }
        EnterCriticalSection(&cs);
        if (!writelockcount) {
            readlockcount++;
        }
        else {
            LeaveCriticalSection(&cs);
            goto retry;
        }
        LeaveCriticalSection(&cs);
    }
    void ReleaseReaderLock() {
        EnterCriticalSection(&cs);
        readlockcount--;
        LeaveCriticalSection(&cs);
    }
    void AcquireWriterLock() {
        retry:
        while (writelockcount||readlockcount) {
            Sleep(0);
        }
        EnterCriticalSection(&cs);
        if (!writelockcount&&!readlockcount) {
            writelockcount++;
        }
        else {
            LeaveCriticalSection(&cs);
            goto retry;
        }
        LeaveCriticalSection(&cs);
    }
    void ReleaseWriterLock() {
        EnterCriticalSection(&cs);
        writelockcount--;
        LeaveCriticalSection(&cs);
    }
};

To perform a spin-wait, comment the lines with Sleep(0).