sridhar_madadi

 Profile Answers by sridhar_madadi Questions by sridhar_madadi

• Sep 23rd, 2005

 

Short for mutual exclusion object. A mutex is a program object that allows multiple program threads to share the same resource, such as file access, but not simultaneously

suraj

• Oct 17th, 2005

 

1. Mutexes can synchronize threads within the same  process  or
     in other processes.

2. Mutexes  can  be  used  to  synchronize  threads
    between  processes  if the mutexes are allocated in writable
    memory and  shared  among  the  cooperating  processes   and    have been initialized for this task.

smokie brown

• Feb 19th, 2006

 

Mutex is a mechanism which is useful in coordinating mutually exclusive access to a shared resource. For example, to prevent two threads from writing to shared memory at the same time, each thread waits for ownership of a mutex object before executing the code that accesses the memory. After writing to the shared memory, the thread releases the mutex object.Threads that are waiting for ownership of a mutex are placed in a first in, first out (FIFO) queue. Therefore, the first thread to wait on the mutex will be the first to receive ownership of the mutex, regardless of thread priority. However, kernel-mode APCs and events that suspend a thread will cause the system to remove the thread from the queue. When the thread resumes its wait for the mutex, it is placed at the end of the queue.