Wait-free algorithms for fast, long-lived renaming

In the classic “one-time” renaming problem, processes are required to choose new names in order to reduce the size of their name space. We introduce a new, more general version of the renaming problem called “long-lived” renaming, in which processes may repeatedly acquire and release names. We also present several wait-free algorithms for both one-time and long-lived renaming on shared-memory multiprocessing systems. Previous wait-free renaming algorithms have time complexity that is dependent on the size of the original name space. In contrast, most of our algorithms have time complexity that is independent of the size of the original name space.