What is a deadlock in multithreading, and how can it be avoided?
Hey Joe
Deadlock is essentially a standstill in a system where progress is impossible due to conflicting demands. To visualize it, imagine two drivers on a narrow road, both refusing to reverse, making forward movement impossible for both. In software, to mitigate the risk of deadlock, developers often employ techniques like lock ordering, where resources are always acquired in a consistent sequence, or using timeout mechanisms, which force threads to give up on a lock after a certain time.
Another common strategy is the “try and back off” approach, where a thread, upon failing to get a resource, releases its acquired resources, waits for a random duration, and then tries again. By implementing these techniques and being vigilant about potential concurrency pitfalls, the chances of deadlock in multi-threaded applications can be significantly reduced.