Description: A mutex, short for ‘mutual exclusion’, is a synchronization primitive used to prevent concurrent access to a shared resource in concurrent programming environments. Its main function is to ensure that only one thread or process can access a specific resource at any given time, thus avoiding race conditions and ensuring data integrity. Mutexes are fundamental in operating systems and programming languages that support concurrency, as they allow coordination between multiple execution threads. When a thread wants to access a resource protected by a mutex, it must ‘lock’ the mutex; if another thread tries to access the same resource, it will be forced to wait until the mutex is released. This locking and unlocking mechanism is essential for synchronization in applications that require safe access to shared resources, such as databases, files, and data structures. Mutexes can be implemented in various ways, including recursive mutexes, which allow the same thread to lock the mutex multiple times without entering a deadlock state, and priority mutexes, which help prevent starvation of lower-priority threads. In summary, mutexes are key tools in concurrent programming, providing an effective mechanism for managing access to shared resources.
