The readers-writers problem is one of the classic and most complex examples in the field of computer science, illustrating problems that might occur in a concurrent program. Throughout the analysis of the different variations of the readers-writers problem, we will reveal more about starvation, as well as its common causes. We will also simulate the problem in Python, so that a deeper understanding of the problem can be gained.
The readers-writers problem
Problem statement
In a readers-writers problem, first and foremost, we have a shared resource, which, in most cases, is a text file. Different threads interact with that text file; each is either a reader or a writer. A reader is a thread that simply accesses the shared resource...
