Inter process Communication using Bounding Buffer

Cooperating processes in operating system commonly shares information with other processes executing in the system. It has several reasons to provide an environment that allows process cooperation. Such as

• Information Sharing
• Computation Speedup
• Modularity

In this article, we are sharing an example code of bounding buffer commonly used in operating systems.

Bounding Buffer Interface

package process;

public interface Buffer {
	
	public void insert(E item);

	public E remove();

}

Bounding Buffer Implementation

package process;

public class BoundedBuffer implements Buffer {
	private static final int BUFFER_SIZE = 5;
	private int count; // number of items in the buffer
	private int in; // points to the next free position
	private int out; // points to the next full position
	private E[] buffer;

	public BoundedBuffer() {
		// buffer is initially empty
		count = 0;
		in = 0;
		out = 0;
		buffer = (E[]) new Object[BUFFER_SIZE];
	}

	// producers calls this method
	public void insert(E item) {
		while (count == BUFFER_SIZE)
			; // do nothing -- no free space
				// add an item to the buffer
		buffer[in] = item;
		in = (in + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;
		++count;
	}

	// consumers calls this method
	public E remove() {
		E item;
		while (count == 0)
			; // do nothing -- nothing to consume
				// remove an item from the buffer
		item = buffer[out];
		out = (out + 1) % BUFFER_SIZE;
		--count;
		return item;
	}
	
	public int Size(){
		return count;
	}
	
	public int getNextFreePos(){
		return in;
	}
	
	public int getNextFullPos(){
		return out;
	}
}