What are the best practices for using mutexes in C?

What are the best practices for using mutexes in C?

When using mutexes in C, it's important to follow best practices like minimizing the scope of locks, avoiding deadlocks, and using recursive mutexes when necessary.

Can you explain how to avoid deadlocks?

To avoid deadlocks, ensure that all threads acquire locks in a consistent order and use timeout mechanisms when trying to acquire a lock.

What is the difference between a mutex and a spinlock?

A mutex puts the thread to sleep if the lock is not available, while a spinlock keeps checking in a loop until the lock is available, which can waste CPU resources.

Are there any specific libraries you recommend for mutexes in C?

The pthreads library is widely used for mutexes in C. It provides robust support for threading and synchronization.

How can I test my mutex implementation?

You can test your mutex implementation by creating multiple threads that attempt to access shared resources and checking for race conditions or deadlocks.