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In computer science, a semaphore is a variable or abstract data type used to control access to a common resource by multiple threads and avoid critical section problems in a concurrent system such as a multitasking operating system. Semaphores are a type of synchronization primitive. A trivial semaphore is a plain variable that is changed (for ...
# The first two are mutexes (only 0 or 1 possible) Semaphore barberReady = 0 Semaphore accessWRSeats = 1 # if 1, the number of seats in the waiting room can be incremented or decremented Semaphore custReady = 0 # the number of customers currently in the waiting room, ready to be served int numberOfFreeWRSeats = N # total number of seats in the ...
In computer science, an event (also called event semaphore) is a type of synchronization mechanism that is used to indicate to waiting processes when a particular condition has become true. An event is an abstract data type with a boolean state and the following operations:
Semaphores are signalling mechanisms which can allow one or more threads/processors to access a section. A Semaphore has a flag which has a certain fixed value associated with it and each time a thread wishes to access the section, it decrements the flag. Similarly, when the thread leaves the section, the flag is incremented.
To enter a critical section, a thread must obtain a semaphore, which it releases on leaving the section. Other threads are prevented from entering the critical section at the same time as the original thread, but are free to gain control of the CPU and execute other code, including other critical sections that are protected by different semaphores.
In computer science, the dining philosophers problem is an example problem often used in concurrent algorithm design to illustrate synchronization issues and techniques for resolving them. It was originally formulated in 1965 by Edsger Dijkstra as a student exam exercise, presented in terms of computers competing for access to tape drive ...
The original semaphore bounded buffer solution was written in ALGOL style. The buffer can store N portions or elements. The "number of queueing portions" semaphore counts the filled locations in the buffer, the "number of empty positions" semaphore counts the empty locations in the buffer and the semaphore "buffer manipulation" works as mutex for the buffer put and get operations.
Two examples that demonstrate the use of Grand Central Dispatch can be found in John Siracusa's Ars Technica Snow Leopard review. [18] Initially, a document-based application has a method called analyzeDocument which may do something like count the number of words and paragraphs in the document. Normally, this would be a quick process, and may ...