What are lock hierarchies and why are they important?

What are lock hierarchies and why are they important?

Lock hierarchies are structures that define the order in which locks should be acquired to prevent deadlocks. They are crucial in concurrent programming to ensure that resources are accessed in a controlled manner.

Can you give me an example of a lock hierarchy?

Sure! For instance, in a database system, you might have a hierarchy where you acquire locks on tables before acquiring locks on rows within those tables.

What happens if I don't follow a lock hierarchy?

If you don't follow a lock hierarchy, you risk creating deadlocks, where two or more processes are waiting indefinitely for each other to release locks.

How can I implement lock hierarchies in my code?

You can implement lock hierarchies by defining a global order for acquiring locks and ensuring that all threads follow this order when requesting locks.