In a mailbox based message passing system, a process is not put in a waiting queue but receives an error signal upon sending to a full mailbox. Similarly, a process is not put in a waiting queue but receives an error signal upon trying to receive from an empty mailbox. Then, the process will try its sending or receiving operation repetitively until it succeeds. Does this approach suffer from race conditions?

Question

Deshawn Orozco

Computers & Technology

25 October, 07:28

In a mailbox based message passing system, a process is not put in a waiting queue but receives an error signal upon sending to a full mailbox. Similarly, a process is not put in a waiting queue but receives an error signal upon trying to receive from an empty mailbox. Then, the process will try its sending or receiving operation repetitively until it succeeds. Does this approach suffer from race conditions?

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Answers (1)

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Matias Arroyo · Answer 1

Yes.

Explanation:

Race condition can be described as a situation where at any time there are two or more processes or threads operating concurrently, there is potential for a particularly difficult class of problems. The identifying characteristic of race conditions is that the performance varies depending on which process or thread executes their instructions before the other one, and this becomes a problem when the program runs correctly in some instances and incorrectly in others. Race conditions are notoriously difficult to debug, because they are unpredictable, unrepeatable, and may not exhibit themselves for years.