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Hello everybody.
We will be having a reporting tomorrow in our Programming Languages subject. I am assigned to discuss about Mutual Exclusion in shared data and task but I am having a hard time getting an explanation on this topic and examples to present to the class. I have been actually reading articles and references about the topic and understood its concept but when I look at some algo, I don't get how it works anymore.
Can anybody help me? Thanks.
mutual exclusion is used to ensure that two concurrent processes do not simultaneously access shared data. it is generally achieved by the use of a "mutex" object. mutex is an abbreviation for mutual exclusion. the concurrent processes attempt to "lock" the mutex, and only one may hold a lock at one time. only the process holding the lock may access the shared data. once the process is finished accessing the shared data, it unlocks the mutex, allowing the next process to lock it.
1) Mutual Exclusion is simple called as mutex, it is one of OS object.
2) In multi tasking environment, it allows only one task to access the shared data.
3) Every task has to put mutex lock when accessing shared data and release it (mutex unlock) once it is completed.
Mutual Exclusion is actually very simple!
Lets say a group people want some ice cream. They all have their bowls, but the ice cream scooper can only be used by one person at a time, the rest have to wait. In this case, the scooper is the shared data, and it's use is mutually exclusive.
You can keep the scooper. I'm taking the whole carton, and I ain't giving it back! Sharing ice cream is for suckers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yarin
I guess that's just plain "exclusion", nothing mutual about it. It's an older mechanism for resource handling, not implemented in most modern systems.
That kind resource handling sounds an awfully lot like the kind used in this one operating system I know of by Microsoft.Quote:
Originally Posted by anduril462
this is probably the best possible explanation of mutual exclusion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yarin