What are some examples of race conditions in programming?

What are some examples of race conditions in programming?

Race conditions occur when two or more threads or processes access shared data and try to change it at the same time. A classic example is a bank account where two transactions try to update the balance simultaneously.

Can you give me a specific code example?

Sure! In a multi-threaded application, if two threads read the same account balance and then both try to update it, they might overwrite each other's changes. Here's a simple example in Python:

account_balance = 100

def withdraw(amount):
    global account_balance
    if account_balance >= amount:
        account_balance -= amount

# Thread 1 and Thread 2 both call withdraw(50) at the same time.

How can I prevent race conditions?

You can prevent race conditions by using synchronization mechanisms like locks, semaphores, or by using atomic operations. For example, using a lock around the withdrawal function ensures that only one thread can execute it at a time.

What are the consequences of not handling race conditions?

Not handling race conditions can lead to inconsistent data, unexpected behavior, and bugs that are hard to trace. In critical systems, this can even result in financial loss or system failures.