Threads And Concurrency Questions Medium
A mutex, short for mutual exclusion, is a synchronization mechanism used in concurrent programming to ensure that only one thread can access a shared resource at a time. It acts as a lock that allows a thread to acquire exclusive access to a resource, preventing other threads from accessing it until the lock is released.
Mutexes are typically used to protect critical sections of code or shared data structures from concurrent access, thereby preventing race conditions and ensuring data integrity. When a thread wants to access a protected resource, it first attempts to acquire the mutex. If the mutex is currently locked by another thread, the requesting thread will be blocked until the mutex becomes available. Once the thread has finished using the resource, it releases the mutex, allowing other threads to acquire it.
Mutexes provide a simple and effective way to synchronize access to shared resources in multi-threaded environments. However, they can also introduce potential issues such as deadlocks if not used correctly. Therefore, it is important to carefully design and implement mutex usage to ensure proper synchronization and avoid any potential problems.