Semaphore vs mutex in os environment

[chandu.kurapati]

Semaphore vs mutex in os enviorlment

Hi,
I'm beginner to the linux environment trying to understand the internals, now looking in to semaphore and mutex concept.

I understood the mutex and semaphore, but in real programming world in which scenario we will go for semaphore & in which scenario we will go for mutex.

can you please elaborate about semaphore & mutex.

Thanks & Regards,
Chandu.Kurapati.

 

[pyro25]

Re: Semaphore vs mutex in os enviorlment

Hi there,

A mutex really stands for mutual-exclusion. It surrounds a ressource so that it's locked before and released after. Also, the OS is aware of that, so it puts threads/processes waiting for it sleep and wakes them when they're released.

A semaphore is more like a barrier to me. It's a synchronization mecanism. It's a way for a thread/process to wait for a condition, before it enters a code segment

Hope it helps.
Laurent