What are race conditions and how can they be prevented?

What are race conditions and how can they be prevented?

Race conditions occur when multiple processes access shared resources concurrently, leading to unpredictable outcomes. To prevent them, you can use techniques like locking, semaphores, or atomic operations.

Can you explain how locking works in this context?

Locking involves restricting access to a resource so that only one process can use it at a time. This can be implemented using mutexes or other synchronization mechanisms.

What are some common scenarios where race conditions might occur?

Common scenarios include multi-threaded applications, database transactions, and any situation where shared data is modified by multiple processes.

Are there any programming languages that help prevent race conditions?

Yes, some languages like Rust have built-in features to prevent race conditions, such as ownership and borrowing rules that enforce safe concurrency.