互斥锁

Until recently, the only sleeping lock in the kernel was the semaphore. Most users of semaphores instantiated a semaphore with a count of one and treated them as a mutual exclusion lock—a sleeping version of the spin-lock. Unfortunately, semaphores are rather generic and do not impose any usage constraints. This makes them useful for managing exclusive access in obscure situations, such as complicated dances between the kernel and userspace. But it also means that simpler locking is harder to do, and the lack of enforced rules makes any sort of automated debugging or constraint enforcement impossible. Seeking a simpler sleeping lock, the kernel developers introduced the mutex.Yes, as you are now accustomed to, that is a confusing name. Let’s clarify.The term “mutex” is a generic name to refer to any sleeping lock that enforces mutual exclusion, such as a semaphore with a usage count of one. In recent Linux kernels, the proper noun “mutex” is now also a specific type of sleeping lock that implements mutual exclusion.That is, a mutex is a mutex.

互斥锁的简单性和效率来自于它在信号量要求之外强加给用户的附加约束。信号量是按照Dijkstra的原始设计来实现最基本的行为，而互斥锁则不同，它的用例更严格、更窄: n一次只能有一个任务持有互斥锁。也就是说，互斥锁的使用计数总是1。

Whoever locked a mutex must unlock it. That is, you cannot lock a mutex in one context and then unlock it in another. This means that the mutex isn’t suitable for more complicated synchronizations between kernel and user-space. Most use cases, however, cleanly lock and unlock from the same context. Recursive locks and unlocks are not allowed. That is, you cannot recursively acquire the same mutex, and you cannot unlock an unlocked mutex. A process cannot exit while holding a mutex. A mutex cannot be acquired by an interrupt handler or bottom half, even with mutex_trylock(). A mutex can be managed only via the official API: It must be initialized via the methods described in this section and cannot be copied, hand initialized, or reinitialized.

[1] Linux内核开发，第三版Robert Love

在窗口，差异如下所示。 MUTEX:成功执行等待的进程必须执行一个信号，反之亦然。二进制信号量:不同的进程可以在一个信号量上执行等待或信号操作。

“二进制信号量”是一种编程语言规避使用«信号量»，如«互斥量»。显然有两个非常大的区别:

你称呼他们的方式。 标识符的最大长度。

Mutex uses a locking mechanism i.e. if a process wants to use a resource then it locks the resource, uses it and then release it. But on the other hand, semaphore uses a signalling mechanism where wait() and signal() methods are used to show if a process is releasing a resource or taking a resource. A mutex is an object but semaphore is an integer variable. In semaphore, we have wait() and signal() functions. But in mutex, there is no such function. A mutex object allows multiple process threads to access a single shared resource but only one at a time. On the other hand, semaphore allows multiple process threads to access the finite instance of the resource until available. In mutex, the lock can be acquired and released by the same process at a time. But the value of the semaphore variable can be modified by any process that needs some resource but only one process can change the value at a time.

一本有用的书，我从这里学习和复制

答案可能取决于目标操作系统。例如，我所熟悉的至少一个RTOS实现允许对单个OS互斥量进行多个连续的“get”操作，只要它们都来自同一个线程上下文中。在允许另一个线程获得互斥量之前，多个get必须被相等数量的put替换。这与二进制信号量不同，对于二进制信号量，无论线程上下文如何，一次只允许一个get。

这种互斥锁背后的思想是，通过一次只允许一个上下文修改数据来保护对象。即使线程获得了互斥量，然后调用进一步修改对象的函数(并在自己的操作周围获得/放置保护互斥量)，这些操作仍然应该是安全的，因为它们都发生在单个线程下。

{
    mutexGet();  // Other threads can no longer get the mutex.

    // Make changes to the protected object.
    // ...

    objectModify();  // Also gets/puts the mutex.  Only allowed from this thread context.

    // Make more changes to the protected object.
    // ...

    mutexPut();  // Finally allows other threads to get the mutex.
}

当然，在使用此特性时，必须确保单个线程中的所有访问都是安全的!

我不确定这种方法有多普遍，或者它是否适用于我所熟悉的系统之外。有关这种互斥锁的示例，请参阅ThreadX RTOS。

既然上面的答案都不能消除困惑，这里有一个答案可以消除我的困惑。

Strictly speaking, a mutex is a locking mechanism used to synchronize access to a resource. Only one task (can be a thread or process based on OS abstraction) can acquire the mutex. It means there will be ownership associated with mutex, and only the owner can release the lock (mutex). Semaphore is signaling mechanism (“I am done, you can carry on” kind of signal). For example, if you are listening songs (assume it as one task) on your mobile and at the same time your friend called you, an interrupt will be triggered upon which an interrupt service routine (ISR) will signal the call processing task to wakeup.

来源:http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/mutex-vs-semaphore/