Compare-and-Swap (CAS) is a fundamental atomic operation in concurrent computing that conditionally updates a memory location’s value. In crypto and blockchain technology, its purpose is to ensure data integrity and prevent race conditions by allowing an update only if the current value matches an expected value, thereby maintaining consistency across shared data structures.
Mechanism
The mechanism operates by comparing the current value of a target memory location with a provided expected value. If these values are identical, the location’s value is atomically replaced with a new provided value; otherwise, the operation fails without modifying the data. This atomic execution guarantees that no other process can interfere between the comparison and the potential swap.
Methodology
This primitive forms the basis for building lock-free data structures and implementing consensus mechanisms in decentralized systems, including specific blockchain architectures. By leveraging CAS, multiple threads or nodes can attempt to modify shared state without explicit locks, reducing contention and improving system scalability, particularly in environments requiring high throughput and fault tolerance.
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