What is the difference between reentrant and thread-safe functions?

Can you explain the difference between reentrant and thread-safe functions?

Sure! Reentrant functions can be interrupted and safely called again before the previous executions complete, while thread-safe functions are designed to be safely called by multiple threads at the same time.

Can you give me an example of a reentrant function?

An example of a reentrant function is one that uses local variables only, like a simple mathematical calculation that doesn't rely on shared state.

What about thread-safe functions? How do they work?

Thread-safe functions often use mechanisms like locks or atomic operations to ensure that shared data is accessed safely by multiple threads.

Are all thread-safe functions reentrant?

Not necessarily. A function can be thread-safe but not reentrant if it uses shared state in a way that doesn't allow for safe re-execution.