View source for Racetrack problem

{{Short description|Flaw in a system or process due to recursive dependence}}
A '''racetrack problem''' is a specific instance of a type of [[Race condition|race condition]]. A racetrack problem is a flaw in a system or process whereby the output and/or result of the process is unexpectedly and critically dependent on the sequence or timing of other events that run in a circular pattern. This problem is semantically different from a race condition because of the circular nature of the problem.

The term originates with the idea of two signals racing each other in a circular motion to influence the output first. Racetrack problems can occur in electronics systems, especially logic circuits, and in computer software, especially multithreaded or distributed programs.

==See also==
*[[Concurrency control]]
*Deadlock
*[[Synchronization]]
*[[Therac-25]]

==External links==
*[https://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/32.57622 Starvation and Critical Race Analyzers for Ada]
*Paper "[http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/251866.html Algorithms for the Optimal State Assignment of Asynchronous State Machines]" by Robert M. Fuhrer, Bill Lin and Steven M. Nowick
*Paper "[http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/11804.html A Novel Framework for Solving the State Assignment Problem for Event-Based Specifications]" by Luciano Lavagno, Cho W. Moon, [[Biography:Robert K. Brayton|Robert K. Brayton]] and Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli
*Article "[http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-sprace.html Secure programmer: Prevent race conditions—Resource contention can be used against you]" by David A. Wheeler
*Chapter "[https://web.archive.org/web/20090216151332/http://www.asta.va.fh-ulm.de/LDP/HOWTO/Secure-Programs-HOWTO/avoid-race.html Avoid Race Conditions]" (Secure Programming for Linux and Unix HOWTO)
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070926215258/http://chiralsoftware.com/blog/Race-condition-vulnerability-in-syscall-wrappers-fa3e57c594119803.html Race conditions, security, and immutability in Java], with sample source code and comparison to C code, by Chiral Software

[[Category:Computer security exploits]]
[[Category:Concurrency (computer science)]]
[[Category:Software bugs]]
[[Category:Logic gates]]
[[Category:Logic in computer science]]

{{Sourceattribution|Racetrack problem}}