Write a note on semaphores

A semaphore is a tool meant for synchronizing multiple processes trying to access a shared variable. That is a semaphore is used to deal with the critical section problem or in other words to evade the race condition. A semaphore S is in fact an integer variable that apart from initialization is accessed only through two standard atomic operations:

*Wait and signal.

The traditional definition of wait in pseudo code is:

    wait (S) {

             while (S<=0)

                ; // no-op

             S--;

    }

The traditional definition of signal in pseudo code is:

    signal (S) {

               S++;

    }

For each process P,

    do {

WAIT

           Critical Section

SIGNALS

          } while (1);

A semaphore is able to be defined as:

typedef struct {

             int value;

             struct process *L;

} semphore;

Once more, the wait semaphore operation can be defined as:

void wait (semaphore S) {

                S.value--;

                if (S.value < 0) {

                    add this process to S.L;

                    block();

                }

}

As well, the signal semaphore operation is able to be defined as:

void signal( semaphore S) {

                   S.value++;

                   if (S.value <= 0) {

                       remove a process P from S.L;

                       wakeup(P);

                   }

}