What is a critical section in operating systems?
a) A section of code that accesses shared resources and must not be executed by more than one process at a time
b) A part of the system memory reserved for kernel operations
c) A section of code that handles process scheduling
d) A part of the file system used for temporary storage
Answer:
a) A section of code that accesses shared resources and must not be executed by more than one process at a time
Explanation:
A critical section is a segment of code that accesses shared resources such as variables, files, or devices. Only one process or thread can execute its critical section at any given time to prevent conflicts, data corruption, or inconsistent results.
To manage access to the critical section, synchronization mechanisms such as semaphores, mutexes, and locks are used. These mechanisms ensure that multiple processes or threads do not execute the critical section simultaneously.
Proper management of critical sections is essential in concurrent programming to ensure that shared resources are accessed safely and consistently across multiple processes.