What is CreateMutex?

Two or more processes can call CreateMutex to create the same named mutex. A process can specify the handle to a mutex object in a call to the DuplicateHandle function to create a duplicate handle that can be used by another process. This mechanism works for both named and unnamed mutexes.

What is OpenMutex?

The OpenMutex function enables multiple processes to open handles of the same mutex object. The function succeeds only if some process has already created the mutex by using the CreateMutex function.

What is a mutex object and why is it used?

A mutex object is a synchronization object whose state is set to signaled when it is not owned by any thread, and nonsignaled when it is owned. Only one thread at a time can own a mutex object, whose name comes from the fact that it is useful in coordinating mutually exclusive access to a shared resource.

What is the difference between mutex and critical section?

From a theoretical perspective, a critical section is a piece of code that must not be run by multiple threads at once because the code accesses shared resources. A mutex is an algorithm (and sometimes the name of a data structure) that is used to protect critical sections.

What is the difference between semaphore and mutex?

A mutex is an object but semaphore is an integer variable. A mutex object allows multiple process threads to access a single shared resource but only one at a time. On the other hand, semaphore allows multiple process threads to access the finite instance of the resource until available.

How is a mutex created?

You can create a Mutex object that represents a named system mutex by using a constructor that accepts a name. The operating-system object can be created at the same time, or it can exist before the creation of the Mutex object.

What is mutex for?

Mutex or Mutual Exclusion Object is used to give access to a resource to only one process at a time. The mutex object allows all the processes to use the same resource but at a time, only one process is allowed to use the resource. Mutex uses the lock-based technique to handle the critical section problem.

What a mutex lock is why it is useful?

A Mutex is a lock that we set before using a shared resource and release after using it. When the lock is set, no other thread can access the locked region of code. So this ensures synchronized access of shared resources in the code.

What are the two kinds of semaphores?

There are two types of semaphores:

• Binary Semaphores: In Binary semaphores, the value of the semaphore variable will be 0 or 1.
• Counting Semaphores: In Counting semaphores, firstly, the semaphore variable is initialized with the number of resources available.

Can we use semaphore in ISR?

Importantly, semaphores can also be used to signal from an interrupt service routine (ISR) to a task. Signaling a semaphore is a non-blocking RTOS behavior and thus ISR safe.

Which is faster semaphore or mutex?

Whereas semaphore can be used across process space and hence it can be used for interprocess synchronization. ii) Mutex is lightweight and faster than semaphore. Futex is even faster. iii) Mutex can be acquired by same thread successfully multiple times with condition that it should release it same number of times.

What is true mutex?

Mutex is a synchronization primitive that grants exclusive access to the shared resource to only one thread. If a thread acquires a mutex, the second thread that wants to acquire that mutex is suspended until the first thread releases the mutex.