Lock / Mutex to a post graduate CS student (Difficulty 4)

This is a submission for DEV Computer Science Challenge v24.06.12: One Byte Explainer.

Explainer

A mutex uses architecture-specific atomic instructions (uninterruptible) until successful, allowing thread access to a critical section. For non-atomic architectures, complex logic involving disabling interrupts and continuously checking flags is used.

Additional Context

I am planning to post 5 submissions explaining "Lock/Mutex" at 5 levels of difficulty. This is Difficulty 4.

A post graduate Computer Science student or an experienced software engineer might have used mutex multiple times. Adding a context on how mutex is implemented to achieve mutual exclusion is something people might find interesting.

For more about explaining the term in 5 Levels of difficulty, refer to the below post. It's interesting!

Computer Science challenge, let's make it interesting!!

Saurav Shah ・ Jun 13

#devchallenge #computerscience #discuss #softwareengineering

Previous explanation for Difficulty 3

Cheers🎉 ~ sauravshah31