# I need only 1 hash in the entire application
# Only 1 thread will ever write data into the hash
# 100s of threads will perform read()s and delete()s
# Here's my first pass at a thread safe hash, not generalized, but for this one app
# The threads never talk to each other, not even to the one that writes, so I'm using class methods rather than finding a way to pass around the reference to an instance

class MyThreadSafeHash
	@@hash = {}
	@@mutex = Mutex.new

	def self.write(key, value)
		@@mutex.synchronize do
			@@hash[key] = value
		end
	end

	# Is synchronize needed for read?
	def self.read(key)
		value = nil
		@@mutex.synchronize do
			value = @@hash[key]
		end
		value
	end

	def self.delete(key)
		@@mutex.synchronize do
			@@hash.delete(key)
		end
	end

	def self.snatch(key)
		value = nil
		while (true)
			value = self.read(key)
			break if value
			sleep 0.010
		end
		value
	end
end