What is the difference between a monitor and a mutex?

What is the difference between a monitor and a mutex?

A monitor is a high-level synchronization construct that allows threads to have mutual exclusion and wait for conditions. A mutex, on the other hand, is a lower-level locking mechanism that provides exclusive access to a resource.

Can you give me an example of when to use a monitor?

Sure! You would use a monitor when you need to manage access to a shared resource and also want to wait for certain conditions to be met, like in producer-consumer scenarios.

What about mutexes? When should I use them?

Mutexes are ideal when you need simple locking mechanisms to protect shared data from concurrent access, especially in performance-critical applications.

Are there any performance differences between them?

Yes, monitors can introduce more overhead due to their higher-level abstractions, while mutexes are generally faster but require more careful management to avoid issues like deadlocks.