Mutex vs Semaphore
Explore the fundamental differences between mutexes and semaphores in Java multithreading. Understand how mutexes enforce exclusive access to resources by allowing only one thread at a time, while semaphores control access to a limited number of resources and enable thread signaling. This lesson helps you distinguish ownership rules and practical applications of both synchronization tools.
We'll cover the following...
Having laid the foundation of concurrent programming concepts and their associated issues, we’ll now discuss the all-important mechanisms of locking and signaling in multi-threaded applications and the differences amongst these constructs.
Mutex
Mutex as the name hints implies mutual exclusion. A mutex is used to guard shared data such as a linked-list, an array or any primitive type. A mutex allows only a single thread to access a resource or critical section.
Once a thread acquires a mutex, all other threads attempting to acquire the same mutex are blocked until the first thread releases the mutex. Once released, most implementations arbitrarily chose one of the waiting threads to acquire the mutex and make progress.
Semaphore
Semaphore, on the other hand, is used for limiting access to a collection of resources. Think of semaphore as having a limited number of ...