From fbc6be4e1c992513c007e6e126760594b8364fbc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Pavel Roskin <1317472+proski@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2024 17:00:19 -0800
Subject: [PATCH] Actually protect against deadlock in Dining Philosophers
 async exercise (#1772)

Swapping forks for one philosopher feels like cheating. It's like one of
the philosophers is facing away from the table. Or perhaps it's the only
right-handed philosopher at the table.

More importantly, there is no effective mechanism to prevent deadlocks.
Add that mechanism, it's useful for learning Rust.

The new code demonstrates let-else, drop and returning values from a
loop. `std::mem::swap` remains in the thread version of the Dining
Philosophers exercise for now.

This also fixes compilation. `left_fork` and `right_fork` had to be
`mut` in `main()` for the workaround to compile.
---
 .../concurrency/dining-philosophers-async.rs  | 33 ++++++++++++-------
 1 file changed, 21 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/exercises/concurrency/dining-philosophers-async.rs b/src/exercises/concurrency/dining-philosophers-async.rs
index 07785d37..12cb08a9 100644
--- a/src/exercises/concurrency/dining-philosophers-async.rs
+++ b/src/exercises/concurrency/dining-philosophers-async.rs
@@ -41,13 +41,28 @@ impl Philosopher {
 
     // ANCHOR: Philosopher-eat
     async fn eat(&self) {
-        // Pick up forks...
+        // Keep trying until we have both forks
         // ANCHOR_END: Philosopher-eat
-        let _first_lock = self.left_fork.lock().await;
-        // Add a delay before picking the second fork to allow the execution
-        // to transfer to another task
-        time::sleep(time::Duration::from_millis(1)).await;
-        let _second_lock = self.right_fork.lock().await;
+        let (_left_fork, _right_fork) = loop {
+            // Pick up forks...
+            let left_fork = self.left_fork.try_lock();
+            let right_fork = self.right_fork.try_lock();
+            let Ok(left_fork) = left_fork else {
+                // If we didn't get the left fork, drop the right fork if we
+                // have it and let other tasks make progress.
+                drop(right_fork);
+                time::sleep(time::Duration::from_millis(1)).await;
+                continue;
+            };
+            let Ok(right_fork) = right_fork else {
+                // If we didn't get the right fork, drop the left fork and let
+                // other tasks make progress.
+                drop(left_fork);
+                time::sleep(time::Duration::from_millis(1)).await;
+                continue;
+            };
+            break (left_fork, right_fork);
+        };
 
         // ANCHOR: Philosopher-eat-body
         println!("{} is eating...", &self.name);
@@ -76,12 +91,6 @@ async fn main() {
         for (i, name) in PHILOSOPHERS.iter().enumerate() {
             let left_fork = Arc::clone(&forks[i]);
             let right_fork = Arc::clone(&forks[(i + 1) % PHILOSOPHERS.len()]);
-            // To avoid a deadlock, we have to break the symmetry
-            // somewhere. This will swap the forks without deinitializing
-            // either of them.
-            if i == 0 {
-                std::mem::swap(&mut left_fork, &mut right_fork);
-            }
             philosophers.push(Philosopher {
                 name: name.to_string(),
                 left_fork,