Avoiding deadlocks

When two or more tasks want to use the same resource, we have a race condition. Until one task finishes using the resource, the other task cannot get access to it. This is known as a deadlock, and we must avoid deadlocks at all costs. For example, resource Collision and resource Audio are used by process Locomotion and process Bullet:

• Locomotion starts to use Collision

• Locomotion and Bullet try to start using Audio

• Bullet "wins" and gets Audio first

• Now Bullet needs to use Collision

• Collision is locked by Locomotion, which is waiting for Bullet

Getting ready

For this recipe, you will need a Windows machine and an installed copy of Visual Studio.

How to do it…

In this recipe, we will find out how easy it is to avoid deadlocks:

#include <thread>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

void Physics()
{
  for (int i = 0; i > -100; i--)
    cout << "From Thread 1: " << i << endl;

}

int main()
{
  std::thread t1(Physics...