The Philosophers project is a deep dive into the world of multithreading in C.It focuses on the fundamentals of threading processes and introduces the concept of mutexes.
The project is themed around the famous "Dining Philosophers" problem, a classic conundrum used widely in computer science to understand synchronization issues in concurrent programming.
- Multithreading: Gain hands-on experience with creating and managing multiple threads in a C program. This is a crucial skill for developing efficient software that can take advantage of multi-core processors.
- Mutexes: Learn how to use mutexes to prevent data races and ensure that threads don't use the same resources at the same time, thus avoiding deadlock. This is a fundamental concept in concurrent programming that helps ensure data integrity and consistency.
- Problem Solving: Tackle the "Dining Philosophers" problem, a complex problem that requires careful planning and coordination of threads. This has helped me improve my algorithmic thinking skills and ability to solve complex problems.
To compile the program, run the following command:
make
./philo [number_of_philosophers] [time_to_die] [time_to_eat] [time_to_sleep] [number_of_times_each_philosopher_must_eat]The program will display the following information:
11800 1 has taken a fork
11800 5 is sleeping
11800 4 has taken a fork
11800 4 has taken a fork
11800 4 is eatingThe first number is the timestamp, the second number is the philosopher's ID, and the third is the action the philosopher is performing.
The project has been tested with the following test cases:
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5 800 200 200 - No philosophers should die.
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4 410 200 200 - No philosophers should die.
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5 800 200 200 7 - No philosophers should die, and the simulation should stop when all philosophers have eaten 7 times.
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1 800 200 200 - The philosopher should not eat and die.
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4 310 200 100 - A philosophers should die.
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2 60 60 60 - No philosophers should die.