What are some examples of mutex usage in programming?

What are some examples of mutex usage in programming?

Mutexes, or mutual exclusions, are used to prevent multiple threads from accessing shared resources simultaneously. For example, in a banking application, a mutex can be used to ensure that only one thread can update a user's account balance at a time.

Can you give me another example?

Sure! In a multi-threaded web server, a mutex can be used to control access to a shared log file, ensuring that log entries from different threads do not get mixed up.

What programming languages support mutexes?

Most programming languages that support multi-threading have mutex implementations. For instance, C++ has std::mutex, Java has synchronized blocks, and Python has the threading.Lock class.

How do I implement a mutex in Python?

In Python, you can use the threading module. Here's a simple example:

import threading
lock = threading.Lock()

with lock:
    # critical section of code
    pass