02-19-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corona688
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loic Domaigne
Well, it's a tradition in POSIX threads to avoid semaphores whenever possible
How come?
Well, this is a joke coming from the comp.programming.threads NG.
The reason behind this joke is: in most of the cases, POSIX threads offers synchronization mechanisms that surpass what semaphores can offer. For instance, a mutex could be seen as a binary semaphore. But mutex is more efficient in the uncontended case (indeed, there is no kernel involvement. This is not the case for semaphore). Beside that, mutex can offer priority inheritance, something impossible with semaphore.
From my own experience, most of the time where semaphores are used in Pthreads program often results from a lack of Pthreads understanding. There are only very few specific cases where semaphores make more sense.
Cheers,
Loïc.
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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN
sem_overview
SEM_OVERVIEW(7) Linux Programmer's Manual SEM_OVERVIEW(7)
NAME
sem_overview - overview of POSIX semaphores
DESCRIPTION
POSIX semaphores allow processes and threads to synchronize their actions.
A semaphore is an integer whose value is never allowed to fall below zero. Two operations can be performed on semaphores: increment the
semaphore value by one (sem_post(3)); and decrement the semaphore value by one (sem_wait(3)). If the value of a semaphore is currently
zero, then a sem_wait(3) operation will block until the value becomes greater than zero.
POSIX semaphores come in two forms: named semaphores and unnamed semaphores.
Named semaphores
A named semaphore is identified by a name of the form /somename; that is, a null-terminated string of up to NAME_MAX-4 (i.e., 251)
characters consisting of an initial slash, followed by one or more characters, none of which are slashes. Two processes can operate
on the same named semaphore by passing the same name to sem_open(3).
The sem_open(3) function creates a new named semaphore or opens an existing named semaphore. After the semaphore has been opened,
it can be operated on using sem_post(3) and sem_wait(3). When a process has finished using the semaphore, it can use sem_close(3)
to close the semaphore. When all processes have finished using the semaphore, it can be removed from the system using
sem_unlink(3).
Unnamed semaphores (memory-based semaphores)
An unnamed semaphore does not have a name. Instead the semaphore is placed in a region of memory that is shared between multiple
threads (a thread-shared semaphore) or processes (a process-shared semaphore). A thread-shared semaphore is placed in an area of
memory shared between the threads of a process, for example, a global variable. A process-shared semaphore must be placed in a
shared memory region (e.g., a System V shared memory segment created using shmget(2), or a POSIX shared memory object built created
using shm_open(3)).
Before being used, an unnamed semaphore must be initialized using sem_init(3). It can then be operated on using sem_post(3) and
sem_wait(3). When the semaphore is no longer required, and before the memory in which it is located is deallocated, the semaphore
should be destroyed using sem_destroy(3).
The remainder of this section describes some specific details of the Linux implementation of POSIX semaphores.
Versions
Prior to kernel 2.6, Linux only supported unnamed, thread-shared semaphores. On a system with Linux 2.6 and a glibc that provides the NPTL
threading implementation, a complete implementation of POSIX semaphores is provided.
Persistence
POSIX named semaphores have kernel persistence: if not removed by sem_unlink(3), a semaphore will exist until the system is shut down.
Linking
Programs using the POSIX semaphores API must be compiled with cc -pthread to link against the real-time library, librt.
Accessing named semaphores via the file system
On Linux, named semaphores are created in a virtual file system, normally mounted under /dev/shm, with names of the form sem.somename.
(This is the reason that semaphore names are limited to NAME_MAX-4 rather than NAME_MAX characters.)
Since Linux 2.6.19, ACLs can be placed on files under this directory, to control object permissions on a per-user and per-group basis.
CONFORMING TO
POSIX.1-2001.
NOTES
System V semaphores (semget(2), semop(2), etc.) are an older semaphore API. POSIX semaphores provide a simpler, and better designed inter-
face than System V semaphores; on the other hand POSIX semaphores are less widely available (especially on older systems) than System V
semaphores.
EXAMPLE
An example of the use of various POSIX semaphore functions is shown in sem_wait(3).
SEE ALSO
sem_close(3), sem_destroy(3), sem_getvalue(3), sem_init(3), sem_open(3), sem_post(3), sem_unlink(3), sem_wait(3), pthreads(7)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.44 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2012-05-13 SEM_OVERVIEW(7)