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Full Discussion: semaphore concept
Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users semaphore concept Post 302134051 by Neo on Tuesday 28th of August 2007 12:18:04 PM
Old 08-28-2007
Semaphores are not inherently linked to memory, processes, code or files.

Semaphores are flags that processes, including processes that access files or shared memory, use to know a guaranteed status, which is often referred to as "atomic".

Let's say you are writing a shared memory application. You don't want to read or write to shared memory when another process is writing to it (if that process has write permissions). Also, you don't want to read a file that is being changed, etc. So, you create a semaphore and you designate two states:

- semaphore set, means that a process with write permission has a file descriptor open.

- semaphore clear, means that there is no process with write permissions accessing the shared memory.

Now, each process that accesses the shared memory must check the status of the semaphore when they (it) open the file (in this case shared memory) for access.

There are many applications for semaphores for interprocess communications, not limited to shared memory; but shared memory certainly required atomic flags for interprocess communications.

Think of this like a person on a single track of train track holding a flag. One train is flying down the track at 200 kph in one direction and other train is heading toward the same track segment from the opposite direction. There is a switch at one section of track where one train can wait while the other passes. A switchman, in the old days, would hold up a flag (later done with lights) to give status to both trains.

You can see that trusting the flags by the switchman is critically important, folks could dies if the flag is incorrect or the conductor of the train does not watch it.

The same is true in interprocess communications, and semaphores are guaranteed by the UNIX / Linux kernel to be atomic, dead right on.

File locks are not guaranteed by the kernel to be atomic, as I recall, so use them with caution.
 

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sem_wait(2)							System Calls Manual						       sem_wait(2)

NAME
sem_wait, sem_trywait - lock a POSIX semaphore SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
is used to lock a semaphore. The calling thread will not return from its call to until one of the following events occur: it successfully obtains a lock on the semaphore; it is interrupted by a signal or an error condition occurs. is used to lock a semaphore, if it is available. The value of the semaphore sem is checked at some unspecified time during the call. If the semaphore is available at the time its value is checked, the calling thread will atomically, with respect to the checking of the value, lock the semaphore. The thread will now own a lock on the semaphore; the call will return successfully. If the semaphore is unavailable at the time its value is checked, then the call returns -1 with errno set to EAGAIN. If the specified semaphore referred to by sem is a named semaphore, then this semaphore must have been opened by the calling process with The calling process must have both read and write permissions on the semaphore to perform these operations. The semaphore will be locked upon successful return and will stay locked until it is explicitly released by a call to To use this function, link in the realtime library by specifying on the compiler or linker command line. EXAMPLES
The following call to will lock the semaphore sem. The following call to will lock the semaphore sem, if it is available. RETURN VALUE
A successful call to will return 0 and the calling thread will then own a lock on the semaphore. Otherwise, the call to will return -1 with errno set to the appropriate value of the error condition. A successful call to will return 0, if the semaphore was available and the calling thread was able to lock the semaphore. Otherwise, the call to will return -1 with errno set to the appropriate value of the error condition. ERRORS
and fail and do not perform the requested operation if any of the following conditions are encountered: [EPERM] The calling process does not have the privileges necessary to lock the semaphore. [EAGAIN] The semaphore was not available and hence could not be locked by This error condition only occurs in [EINVAL] The argument sem does not refer to a valid semaphore. [EINTR] The function was interrupted by a signal SEE ALSO
sem_post(2), <semaphore.h>. STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
sem_wait(2)
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