CODEWITHSUNDEEP
multithreadingunixthread-safetypthreadsmutex
user5574376
user5574376

Reputation: 391

Can a thread be logically interruptible while waiting for a mutex?

I was reading R&R's Unix system programming, I encounter a question about mutex. For the following paragraph stated in that book. When he said a thread that waits for a mutex is not logically interruptible, does it mean when a thread wait for a mutex, it won't be able to do a context switch? Can someone elaborate it?

A thread that waits for a mutex is not logically interruptible except by termination of the process, termination of a thread with pthread_exit (from a signal handler), or asynchronous cancellation (which is normally not used).

Upvotes: 0

Views: 107

Answers (1)

caf
caf

Reputation: 239041

No, it doesn't mean that it can't context switch. On the contrary, a thread waiting for a mutex that is already acquired almost always will context switch away, perhaps after a short delay.

All it means is that the pthread_mutex_lock() call won't return EINTR or similar - it will either successfully acquire the mutex, or return persistent failure.

Upvotes: 1

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