- Dijkestra proposed a significant technique for managing concurrent processes for complex mutual exclusion problems.
- He introduced a new synchronization tool called Semaphore.
Semaphores are of two types −
1. Binary semaphore
2. Counting semaphore
Binary semaphore
Binary semaphore can take the value 0 & 1 only.
Counting semaphore
Counting semaphore can take nonnegative integer values.
- Two standard operations, wait and signal are defined on the semaphore. Entry to the critical section is controlled by the wait operation and exit from a critical region is taken care by signal operation.
- The wait, signal operations are also called P and V operations. The manipulation of semaphore (S) takes place as following:
- The wait command P(S) decrements the semaphore value by 1. If the resulting value becomes negative then P command is delayed until the condition is satisfied.
- The V(S) i.e. signals operation increments the semaphore value by 1.
- Mutual exclusion on the semaphore is enforced within P(S) and V(S).
- If a number of processes attempt P(S) simultaneously, only one process will be allowed to proceed & the other processes will be waiting.These operations are defined as under −
- The semaphore operation are implemented as operating system services and so wait and signal are atomic in nature i.e. once started, execution of these operations cannot be interrupted.
- Thus semaphore is a simple yet powerful mechanism to ensure mutual exclusion among concurrent processes.