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Managing Race Conditions in Threads

The document discusses a race condition in a multi-threaded environment where two tasks increment a global variable simultaneously, leading to unpredictable results. It explains the importance of protecting shared resources using mechanisms like queues, locks, mutexes, and semaphores to ensure thread synchronization. The provided code examples illustrate how race conditions can occur and how to mitigate them using mutexes.

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28 views7 pages

Managing Race Conditions in Threads

The document discusses a race condition in a multi-threaded environment where two tasks increment a global variable simultaneously, leading to unpredictable results. It explains the importance of protecting shared resources using mechanisms like queues, locks, mutexes, and semaphores to ensure thread synchronization. The provided code examples illustrate how race conditions can occur and how to mitigate them using mutexes.

Uploaded by

The UnCONFUSED
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Race Condition

int global_var = 0;
global_var increment can take
several instruction cycles!
void incTask(void *parameters) {
while(1) {
global_var:
global_var++;
0
}
1
}
2
3
void main() {
3
startTask1(incTask, “Task 1”);
4
startTask2(incTask, “Task 2”);
5
sleep();
5
}
Task A

Global
Variable

Task B
Race Condition

int global_var = 0;
global_var increment can take
several instruction cycles!
void incTask(void *parameters) {
while(1) {
global_var:
global_var++;
0
}
1
}
2
3
void main() {
3
startTask1(incTask, “Task 1”);
4
startTask2(incTask, “Task 2”);
5
sleep();
5
}
Global
Task A Task B
Variable

Get value from memory 0


Increment value
Write value to memory 1
1 Get value from memory
Increment value
2 Write value to memory

Get value from memory 2


2 Get value from memory
Increment value
3 Write value to memory
Increment value
Write value to memory 3 Uh-oh.
Protecting Shared Resources and Synchronizing Threads

● Queue: pass messages (data) between threads


● Lock: allows only one thread to enter the “locked” section of code
● Mutex (MUTual EXclusion): Like a lock, but system wide (shared by multiple
processes)
● Semaphore: allows multiple threads to enter a critical section of code
Task A Global Task B
Mutex
Variable

1 0
Check for and take mutex
0 0
Get value from memory
0 0
Check for and take mutex
0 0
Wait/yield
0 0
Increment value
0 0
Write value to memory
0 1
Give mutex
1 1
Check for and take mutex
0 1
Get value from memory
0 1
Increment value
0 1
Write value to memory
0 2
Give mutex
1 2

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