What are mutexes and how are they used in real-world applications?

What are mutexes and how are they used in real-world applications?

Mutexes, or mutual exclusions, are synchronization primitives used to manage access to shared resources in concurrent programming. They prevent race conditions by ensuring that only one thread can access a resource at a time.

Can you give me an example of where mutexes are applied?

Sure! A common example is in a banking application where multiple threads may try to update an account balance simultaneously. Mutexes ensure that only one thread can modify the balance at a time, preventing inconsistencies.

What happens if a mutex is not used in such scenarios?

Without mutexes, multiple threads could read and write to the account balance simultaneously, leading to race conditions, data corruption, and incorrect balances.

Are there any performance drawbacks to using mutexes?

Yes, while mutexes are essential for data integrity, they can introduce overhead and reduce performance due to thread contention, especially if many threads are trying to access the same resource.