Patent ID: 8225327

Claim:
A method for handling a shared list data structure within a multithreaded data processing system, said method comprising: in response to a receipt of a first request to dereference said shared list data structure having a plurality of list elements, invoking a non-global locking element removal routine to dereference said shared list data structure, wherein said non-global locking removal routine includes a dereference instruction to dereference a head pointer for said shared list data structure; in response to a receipt of a second request to dereference said shared list data structure, invoking said non-global locking element removal routine to dereference said shared list data structure and detecting a transition to a page fault handler due to said shared list data structure that has already been dereferenced by said first request; and in response to said transition to said page fault handler during the execution of said non-global locking element removal routine, invoking a global locking element removal routine to handle said second request, wherein said global locking element removal routine assigns a pointer linked to said head pointer as a new head pointer for said shared list data structure, and dereferences said shared list data structure by dereferencing said new head pointer.