Difference between binary semaphore and mutex

问题:

Is there any difference between a binary semaphore and mutex or are they essentially the same?

回答1:

They are NOT the same thing. They are used for different purposes!
While both types of semaphores have a full/empty state and use the same API, their usage is very different.

Mutual Exclusion Semaphores
Mutual Exclusion semaphores are used to protect shared resources (data structure, file, etc..).

A Mutex semaphore is "owned" by the task that takes it. If Task B attempts to semGive a mutex currently held by Task A, Task B's call will return an error and fail.

Mutexes always use the following sequence:

  - SemTake
  - Critical Section
  - SemGive

Here is a simple example:

  Thread A                     Thread B
   Take Mutex
     access data
     ...                        Take Mutex  <== Will block
     ...
   Give Mutex                     access data  <== Unblocks
                                  ...
                                Give Mutex

Binary Semaphore
Binary Semaphore address a totally different question:

• Task B is pended waiting for something to happen (a sensor being tripped for example).
• Sensor Trips and an Interrupt Service Routine runs. It needs to notify a task of the trip.
• Task B should run and take appropriate actions for the sensor trip. Then go back to waiting.

   Task A                      Task B
   ...                         Take BinSemaphore   <== wait for something
   Do Something Noteworthy
   Give BinSemaphore           do something    <== unblocks

Note that with a binary semaphore, it is OK for B to take the semaphore and A to give it.
Again, a binary semaphore is NOT protecting a resource from access. The act of Giving and Taking a semaphore are fundamentally decoupled.
It typically makes little sense for the same task to so a give and a take on the same binary semaphore.

回答2:

Mutex can be released only by thread that had acquired it, while you can signal semaphore from any other thread (or process), so semaphores are more suitable for some synchronization problems like producer-consumer.

On Windows, binary semaphores are more like event objects than mutexes.

回答3:

The Toilet example is an enjoyable analogy:

Mutex:

Is a key to a toilet. One person can have the key - occupy the toilet - at the time. When finished, the person gives (frees) the key to the next person in the queue.

Officially: "Mutexes are typically used to serialise access to a section of re-entrant code that cannot be executed concurrently by more than one thread. A mutex object only allows one thread into a controlled section, forcing other threads which attempt to gain access to that section to wait until the first thread has exited from that section." Ref: Symbian Developer Library

(A mutex is really a semaphore with value 1.)

Semaphore:

Is the number of free identical toilet keys. Example, say we have four toilets with identical locks and keys. The semaphore count - the count of keys - is set to 4 at beginning (all four toilets are free), then the count value is decremented as people are coming in. If all toilets are full, ie. there are no free keys left, the semaphore count is 0. Now, when eq. one person leaves the toilet, semaphore is increased to 1 (one free key), and given to the next person in the queue.

Officially: "A semaphore restricts the number of simultaneous users of a shared resource up to a maximum number. Threads can request access to the resource (decrementing the semaphore), and can signal that they have finished using the resource (incrementing the semaphore)." Ref: Symbian Developer Library

回答4:

Nice articles on the topic:

• MUTEX VS. SEMAPHORES – PART 1: SEMAPHORES
• MUTEX VS. SEMAPHORES – PART 2: THE MUTEX
• MUTEX VS. SEMAPHORES – PART 3 (FINAL PART): MUTUAL EXCLUSION PROBLEMS

From part 2:

The mutex is similar to the principles of the binary semaphore with one significant difference: the principle of ownership. Ownership is the simple concept that when a task locks (acquires) a mutex only it can unlock (release) it. If a task tries to unlock a mutex it hasn’t locked (thus doesn’t own) then an error condition is encountered and, most importantly, the mutex is not unlocked. If the mutual exclusion object doesn't have ownership then, irrelevant of what it is called, it is not a mutex.

回答5:

Since none of the above answer clears the confusion, here is one which cleared my confusion.

Strictly speaking, a mutex is a locking mechanism used to synchronize access to a resource. Only one task (can be a thread or process based on OS abstraction) can acquire the mutex. It means there will be ownership associated with mutex, and only the owner can release the lock (mutex).

Semaphore is signaling mechanism (“I am done, you can carry on” kind of signal). For example, if you are listening songs (assume it as one task) on your mobile and at the same time your friend called you, an interrupt will be triggered upon which an interrupt service routine (ISR) will signal the call processing task to wakeup.

Source: http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/mutex-vs-semaphore/

回答6:

Their synchronization semantics are very different:

• mutexes allow serialization of access to a given resource i.e. multiple threads wait for a lock, one at a time and as previously said, the thread owns the lock until it is done: only this particular thread can unlock it.
• a binary semaphore is a counter with value 0 and 1: a task blocking on it until any task does a sem_post. The semaphore advertises that a resource is available, and it provides the mechanism to wait until it is signaled as being available.

As such one can see a mutex as a token passed from task to tasks and a semaphore as traffic red-light (it signals someone that it can proceed).

回答7:

• A Mutex, by definition, is used to serialize access to a section of re­-entrant code that cannot be executed concurrently by more than one thread.

• A Semaphore, by definition, restricts the number of simultaneous users of a shared resource up to a maximum number

• A semaphore can be a Mutex but a Mutex can never be semaphore. This simply means that a binary semaphore ca n be used
  as Mutex, but a Mutex can never exhibit the functionality of semaphore.

• Both semaphores and Mutex (at least the on latest kernel) are non­recursive in nature.
• No one owns semaphores, whereas Mutex are owned and the owner is held responsible for them. This is an important distinction from a debugging perspective.

• In case the of Mutex, the thread that owns the Mutex is responsible for freeing it. However, in the case of semaphores, this condition is not required. Any other thread can signal to free the semaphore by using the s m p s ( function.e_ot)

• Another difference that would matter to developers is that semaphores are system­ wide and remain in the form of files on the filesystem, unless otherwise cleaned up. Mutex are process­wide and get cleaned up automatically when a process exits.

• The nature of semaphores makes it possible to use them in synchronizing related and unrelated process, as well as between threads. Mutex can be used only in synchronizing between threads and at most between related processes (the pthread implementation of the latest kernel comes with a feature that allows Mutex to be used between related process).
• According to the kernel documentation, Mutex are lighter when compared to semaphores. What this means is that a program with semaphore usage has a higher memory footprint when compared to a program having Mutex.
• From a usage perspective, Mutex has simpler semantics when compared to semaphores.

回答8:

At a theoretical level, they are no different semantically. You can implement a mutex using semaphores or vice versa (see here for an example). In practice, the implementation is different and they offer slightly different services.

The practical difference (in terms of the system services surrounding them) is that the implementation of a mutex is aimed at being a more lightweight synchronisation mechanism. In oracle-speak, mutexes are known as latches and semaphores are known as waits.

At the lowest level, they use some sort of atomic test and set mechanism. This reads the current value of a memory location, computes some sort of conditional and writes out a value at that location in a single instruction that cannot be interrupted. This means that you can acquire a mutex and test to see if anyone else had it before you.

A typical mutex implementation has a process or thread executing the test-and-set instruction and evaluating whether anything else had set the mutex. A key point here is that there is no interaction with the scheduler, so we have no idea (and don't care) who has set the lock. Then we either give up our time slice and attempt it again when the task is re-scheduled or execute a spin-lock. A spin lock is an algorithm like:

Count down from 5000:
     i. Execute the test-and-set instruction
    ii. If the mutex is clear, we have acquired it in the previous instruction 
        so we can exit the loop
   iii. When we get to zero, give up our time slice.

When we have finished executing our protected code (known as a critical section) we just set the mutex value to zero or whatever means 'clear.' If multiple tasks are attempting to acquire the mutex they the next task that happens to be scheduled after the mutex is released will get access to the resource. Typically you would use mutexes to control a synchronised resource where exclusive access is only needed for very short periods of time, normally to make an update to a shared data structure.

A semaphore is a synchronised data structure (typically using a mutex) that has a count and some system call wrappers that interact with the scheduler in a bit more depth than the mutex libraries would. Semaphores are incremented and decremented and used to block tasks until something else is ready. See Producer/Consumer Problem for a simple example of this. Semaphores are initialised to some value - a binary semaphore is just a special case where the semaphore is initialised to 1. Posting to a semaphore has the effect of waking up a waiting process.

A basic semaphore algorithm looks like:

(somewhere in the program startup)
Initialise the semaphore to its start-up value.

Acquiring a semaphore
   i. (synchronised) Attempt to decrement the semaphore value
  ii. If the value would be less than zero, put the task on the tail of the list of tasks waiting on the semaphore and give up the time slice.

Posting a semaphore
   i. (synchronised) Increment the semaphore value
  ii. If the value is greater or equal to the amount requested in the post at the front of the queue, take that task off the queue and make it runnable.  
 iii. Repeat (ii) for all tasks until the posted value is exhausted or there are no more tasks waiting.

In the case of a binary semaphore the main practical difference between the two is the nature of the system services surrounding the actual data structure.

EDIT: As evan has rightly pointed out, spinlocks will slow down a single processor machine. You would only use a spinlock on a multi-processor box because on a single processor the process holding the mutex will never reset it while another task is running. Spinlocks are only useful on multi-processor architectures.

回答9:

Though mutex & semaphores are used as synchronization primitives ,there is a big difference between them. In the case of mutex, only the thread that locked or acquired the mutex can unlock it. In the case of a semaphore, a thread waiting on a semaphore can be signaled by a different thread. Some operating system supports using mutex & semaphores between process. Typically usage is creating in shared memory.

回答10:

On Windows, there are two differences between mutexes and binary semaphores:

1. A mutex can only be released by the thread which has ownership, i.e. the thread which previously called the Wait function, (or which took ownership when creating it). A semaphore can be released by any thread.

2. A thread can call a wait function repeatedly on a mutex without blocking. However, if you call a wait function twice on a binary semaphore without releasing the semaphore in between, the thread will block.

回答11:

You obviously use mutex to lock a data in one thread getting accessed by another thread at the same time. Assume that you have just called lock() and in the process of accessing data. This means that you don’t expect any other thread (or another instance of the same thread-code) to access the same data locked by the same mutex. That is, if it is the same thread-code getting executed on a different thread instance, hits the lock, then the lock() should block the control flow there. This applies to a thread that uses a different thread-code, which is also accessing the same data and which is also locked by the same mutex. In this case, you are still in the process of accessing the data and you may take, say, another 15 secs to reach the mutex unlock (so that the other thread that is getting blocked in mutex lock would unblock and would allow the control to access the data). Do you at any cost allow yet another thread to just unlock the same mutex, and in turn, allow the thread that is already waiting (blocking) in the mutex lock to unblock and access the data? Hope you got what I am saying here? As per, agreed upon universal definition!,

• with “mutex” this can’t happen. No other thread can unlock the lock in your thread
• with “binary-semaphore” this can happen. Any other thread can unlock the lock in your thread

So, if you are very particular about using binary-semaphore instead of mutex, then you should be very careful in “scoping” the locks and unlocks. I mean that every control-flow that hits every lock should hit an unlock call, also there shouldn’t be any “first unlock”, rather it should be always “first lock”.

回答12:

Mutex are used for " Locking Mechanisms ". one process at a time can use a shared resource

whereas

Semaphores are used for " Signaling Mechanisms " like "I am done , now can continue"

回答13:

Myth:

Couple of article says that "binary semaphore and mutex are same" or "Semaphore with value 1 is mutex" but the basic difference is Mutex can be released only by thread that had acquired it, while you can signal semaphore from any other thread

Key Points:

•A thread can acquire more than one lock (Mutex).

•A mutex can be locked more than once only if its a recursive mutex, here lock and unlock for mutex should be same

•If a thread which had already locked a mutex, tries to lock the mutex again, it will enter into the waiting list of that mutex, which results in deadlock.

•Binary semaphore and mutex are similar but not same.

•Mutex is costly operation due to protection protocols associated with it.

•Main aim of mutex is achieve atomic access or lock on resource

回答14:

Mutex: Suppose we have critical section thread T1 wants to access it then it follows below steps. T1:

1. Lock
2. Use Critical Section
3. Unlock

Binary semaphore: It works based on signaling wait and signal. wait(s) decrease "s" value by one usually "s" value is initialize with value "1", signal(s) increases "s" value by one. if "s" value is 1 means no one is using critical section, when value is 0 means critical section is in use. suppose thread T2 is using critical section then it follows below steps. T2 :

1. wait(s)//initially s value is one after calling wait it's value decreased by one i.e 0
2. Use critical section
3. signal(s) // now s value is increased and it become 1

Main difference between Mutex and Binary semaphore is in Mutext if thread lock the critical section then it has to unlock critical section no other thread can unlock it, but in case of Binary semaphore if one thread locks critical section using wait(s) function then value of s become "0" and no one can access it until value of "s" become 1 but suppose some other thread calls signal(s) then value of "s" become 1 and it allows other function to use critical section. hence in Binary semaphore thread doesn't have ownership.

回答15:

A Mutex controls access to a single shared resource. It provides operations to acquire() access to that resource and release() it when done.

A Semaphore controls access to a shared pool of resources. It provides operations to Wait() until one of the resources in the pool becomes available, and Signal() when it is given back to the pool.

When number of resources a Semaphore protects is greater than 1, it is called a Counting Semaphore. When it controls one resource, it is called a Boolean Semaphore. A boolean semaphore is equivalent to a mutex.

Thus a Semaphore is a higher level abstraction than Mutex. A Mutex can be implemented using a Semaphore but not the other way around.

回答16:

Modified question is - What's the difference between A mutex and a "binary" semaphore in "Linux"?

Ans: Following are the differences – i) Scope – The scope of mutex is within a process address space which has created it and is used for synchronization of threads. 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. Other thread trying to acquire will block. Whereas in case of semaphore if same process tries to acquire it again it blocks as it can be acquired only once.

回答17:

Mutex work on blocking critical region, But Semaphore work on count.

回答18:

http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/archives/9102 discusses in details.

Mutex is locking mechanism used to synchronize access to a resource. Semaphore is signaling mechanism.

Its up to to programmer if he/she wants to use binary semaphore in place of mutex.

回答19:

Diff between Binary Semaphore and Mutex: OWNERSHIP: Semaphores can be signalled (posted) even from a non current owner. It means you can simply post from any other thread, though you are not the owner.

Semaphore is a public property in process, It can be simply posted by a non owner thread. Please Mark this difference in BOLD letters, it mean a lot.

回答20:

Apart from the fact that mutexes have an owner, the two objects may be optimized for different usage. Mutexes are designed to be held only for a short time; violating this can cause poor performance and unfair scheduling. For example, a running thread may be permitted to acquire a mutex, even though another thread is already blocked on it. Semaphores may provide more fairness, or fairness can be forced using several condition variables.

回答21:

In windows the difference is as below. MUTEX: process which successfully executes wait has to execute a signal and vice versa. BINARY SEMAPHORES: Different processes can execute wait or signal operation on a semaphore.

回答22:

The concept was clear to me after going over above posts. But there were some lingering questions. So, I wrote this small piece of code.

When we try to give a semaphore without taking it, it goes through. But, when you try to give a mutex without taking it, it fails. I tested this on a Windows platform. Enable USE_MUTEX to run the same code using a MUTEX.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <windows.h>
#define xUSE_MUTEX 1
#define MAX_SEM_COUNT 1

DWORD WINAPI Thread_no_1( LPVOID lpParam );
DWORD WINAPI Thread_no_2( LPVOID lpParam );

HANDLE Handle_Of_Thread_1 = 0;
HANDLE Handle_Of_Thread_2 = 0;
int Data_Of_Thread_1 = 1;
int Data_Of_Thread_2 = 2;
HANDLE ghMutex = NULL;
HANDLE ghSemaphore = NULL;


int main(void)
{

#ifdef USE_MUTEX
    ghMutex = CreateMutex( NULL, FALSE, NULL);
    if (ghMutex  == NULL) 
    {
        printf("CreateMutex error: %d\n", GetLastError());
        return 1;
    }
#else
    // Create a semaphore with initial and max counts of MAX_SEM_COUNT
    ghSemaphore = CreateSemaphore(NULL,MAX_SEM_COUNT,MAX_SEM_COUNT,NULL);
    if (ghSemaphore == NULL) 
    {
        printf("CreateSemaphore error: %d\n", GetLastError());
        return 1;
    }
#endif
    // Create thread 1.
    Handle_Of_Thread_1 = CreateThread( NULL, 0,Thread_no_1, &Data_Of_Thread_1, 0, NULL);  
    if ( Handle_Of_Thread_1 == NULL)
    {
        printf("Create first thread problem \n");
        return 1;
    }

    /* sleep for 5 seconds **/
    Sleep(5 * 1000);

    /*Create thread 2 */
    Handle_Of_Thread_2 = CreateThread( NULL, 0,Thread_no_2, &Data_Of_Thread_2, 0, NULL);  
    if ( Handle_Of_Thread_2 == NULL)
    {
        printf("Create second thread problem \n");
        return 1;
    }

    // Sleep for 20 seconds
    Sleep(20 * 1000);

    printf("Out of the program \n");
    return 0;
}


int my_critical_section_code(HANDLE thread_handle)
{

#ifdef USE_MUTEX
    if(thread_handle == Handle_Of_Thread_1)
    {
        /* get the lock */
        WaitForSingleObject(ghMutex, INFINITE);
        printf("Thread 1 holding the mutex \n");
    }
#else
    /* get the semaphore */
    if(thread_handle == Handle_Of_Thread_1)
    {
        WaitForSingleObject(ghSemaphore, INFINITE);
        printf("Thread 1 holding semaphore \n");
    }
#endif

    if(thread_handle == Handle_Of_Thread_1)
    {
        /* sleep for 10 seconds */
        Sleep(10 * 1000);
#ifdef USE_MUTEX
        printf("Thread 1 about to release mutex \n");
#else
        printf("Thread 1 about to release semaphore \n");
#endif
    }
    else
    {
        /* sleep for 3 secconds */
        Sleep(3 * 1000);
    }

#ifdef USE_MUTEX
    /* release the lock*/
    if(!ReleaseMutex(ghMutex))
    {
        printf("Release Mutex error in thread %d: error # %d\n", (thread_handle == Handle_Of_Thread_1 ? 1:2),GetLastError());
    }
#else
    if (!ReleaseSemaphore(ghSemaphore,1,NULL) )      
    {
        printf("ReleaseSemaphore error in thread %d: error # %d\n",(thread_handle == Handle_Of_Thread_1 ? 1:2), GetLastError());
    }
#endif

    return 0;
}

DWORD WINAPI Thread_no_1( LPVOID lpParam ) 
{ 
    my_critical_section_code(Handle_Of_Thread_1);
    return 0;
}


DWORD WINAPI Thread_no_2( LPVOID lpParam ) 
{
    my_critical_section_code(Handle_Of_Thread_2);
    return 0;
}

回答23:

While a binary semaphore may be used as a mutex, a mutex is a more specific use-case, in that only the process that locked the mutex is supposed to unlock it. This ownership constraint makes it possible to provide protection against:

• Accidental release
• Recursive Deadlock
• Task Death Deadlock

These constraints are not always present because they degrade the speed. During the development of your code, you can enable these checks temporarily.

e.g. you can enable Error check attribute in your mutex. Error checking mutexes return EDEADLK if you try to lock the same one twice and EPERM if you unlock a mutex that isn't yours.

pthread_mutex_t mutex;
pthread_mutexattr_t attr;
pthread_mutexattr_init (&attr);
pthread_mutexattr_settype (&attr, PTHREAD_MUTEX_ERRORCHECK_NP);
pthread_mutex_init (&mutex, &attr);

Once initialised we can place these checks in our code like this:

if(pthread_mutex_unlock(&mutex)==EPERM)
 printf("Unlock failed:Mutex not owned by this thread\n");

回答24:

Mutex is used to protect the sensitive code and data, semaphore is used to synchronization.You also can have practical use with protect the sensitive code, but there might be a risk that release the protection by the other thread by operation V.So The main difference between bi-semaphore and mutex is the ownership.For instance by toilet , Mutex is like that one can enter the toilet and lock the door, no one else can enter until the man get out, bi-semaphore is like that one can enter the toilet and lock the door, but someone else could enter by asking the administrator to open the door, it's ridiculous.

回答25:

The answer may depend on the target OS. For example, at least one RTOS implementation I'm familiar with will allow multiple sequential "get" operations against a single OS mutex, so long as they're all from within the same thread context. The multiple gets must be replaced by an equal number of puts before another thread will be allowed to get the mutex. This differs from binary semaphores, for which only a single get is allowed at a time, regardless of thread contexts.

The idea behind this type of mutex is that you protect an object by only allowing a single context to modify the data at a time. Even if the thread gets the mutex and then calls a function that further modifies the object (and gets/puts the protector mutex around its own operations), the operations should still be safe because they're all happening under a single thread.

{
    mutexGet();  // Other threads can no longer get the mutex.

    // Make changes to the protected object.
    // ...

    objectModify();  // Also gets/puts the mutex.  Only allowed from this thread context.

    // Make more changes to the protected object.
    // ...

    mutexPut();  // Finally allows other threads to get the mutex.
}

Of course, when using this feature, you must be certain that all accesses within a single thread really are safe!

I'm not sure how common this approach is, or whether it applies outside of the systems with which I'm familiar. For an example of this kind of mutex, see the ThreadX RTOS.

回答26:

Mutexes have ownership, unlike semaphores. Although any thread, within the scope of a mutex, can get an unlocked mutex and lock access to the same critical section of code,only the thread that locked a mutex should unlock it.

回答27:

As many folks here have mentioned, a mutex is used to protect a critical piece of code (AKA critical section.) You will acquire the mutex (lock), enter critical section, and release mutex (unlock) all in the same thread.

While using a semaphore, you can make a thread wait on a semaphore (say thread A), until another thread (say thread B)completes whatever task, and then sets the Semaphore for thread A to stop the wait, and continue its task.

回答28:

Mutex and binary semaphore are both of the same usage, but in reality, they are different.

In case of mutex, only the thread which have locked it can unlock it. If any other thread comes to lock it, it will wait.

In case of semaphone, that's not the case. Semaphore is not tied up with a particular thread ID.

回答29:

Almost all of the above said it right. Let me also try my bit to clarify if somebody still has a doubt. Mutex -> used for serialization Semaphore-> synchronization. Purpose of both are different however, same functionality could be achieved through both of them with careful programming. Standard Example-> producer consumer problem. initial value of SemaVar=0

Producer Consumer --- SemaWait()->decrement SemaVar

produce data

SemaSignal SemaVar or SemaVar++ --->consumer unblocks as SemVar is 1 now.

Hope I could clarify.