METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SPECULATIVELY LOCKING OBJECTS IN AN OBJECT-BASED SYSTEM

Methods and apparatus for speculatively locking an object are disclosed. According to one aspect of the present invention, a method for acquiring use of an object using a current thread includes a determination of whether a first bit included in the object is set to indicate that the object is speculatively owned by a speculative owner thread. When the object is speculatively owned, the speculative owner thread is allowed to use the object without locking the object. The method also includes checking a stored identifier that is associated with the object and identifies the speculative owner thread, as well as determining whether the stored identifier identifies the current thread. When the stored identifier identifies the current thread, the current thread already has use of the object; i.e., the current thread is the speculative owner thread. Finally, the method includes locking the object using the speculative owner thread when it is determined that the stored identifier does not identify the current thread. In one embodiment, as for example when substantially all objects in a computing system are known to be suitable for speculative ownership, the stored identifier is checked before determining when the first bit associated with the object is set to indicate that the object is associated with the speculative owner thread.