Operating Systems, unit: Process Synchronization. Core concepts, terminology, and worked-example cues a college student meets for this unit, building on prior units without repeating them. Front: a term, concept, or short problem cue. Back: the definition, explanation, or answer.
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- What is process synchronization?
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Coordinating the execution of multiple processes or threads that share resources- What is a critical section?
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A segment of code that accesses shared resources and must not be executed by more than one process at a time- What is mutual exclusion?
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Ensuring that only one process or thread can execute a critical section at a time- What is a race condition?
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An error occurring when the outcome depends on the uncontrolled timing or interleaving of operations- What is a mutex (mutual exclusion lock)?
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A synchronization tool that allows only one thread to access a resource at a time- What is a semaphore?
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A synchronization variable used to control access to a shared resource, using signal and wait operations- What is a binary semaphore?
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A semaphore that can only take values 0 or 1, functioning like a simple lock- What is a counting semaphore?
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A semaphore that can take a range of values, tracking the number of available instances of a resource- What operations are used with a classic semaphore?
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Wait (P, decrement) and Signal (V, increment)- What is a monitor, as a synchronization construct?
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A high-level construct bundling shared data with the procedures that safely access it- What is the producer-consumer problem?
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A classic synchronization problem where producers generate data and consumers process it from a shared buffer- What is the readers-writers problem?
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A classic synchronization problem balancing shared read access with exclusive write access to data- What is a spinlock?
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A lock where a thread repeatedly checks in a loop ('busy waits') until the lock becomes available- What is busy waiting?
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Continuously checking a condition in a loop, wasting CPU cycles while waiting- What is atomicity, in the context of concurrent operations?
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An operation that completes entirely or not at all, with no partial or interrupted state visible to others
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