Question

Each process Pi, i = 0,1,2,3,......,9 is coded as follows :

repeat
P(mutex)
{Critical Section}
V(mutex)
forever
The code for P10 is identical except that it uses V(mutex) instead of P(mutex). What is the largest number of processes that can be inside the critical section at any moment (the mutex being initialized to 1)?
a) 1
b) 2
c) 3
d) None of these

Answer 1

The largest number of processes that can be inside the critical section at any moment in the given code is 1.

Step-by-step explanation:

The given code represents a set of processes (P0, P1, P2...) accessing a critical section of code using a mutex. The mutex is a synchronization primitive that allows only one process to access the critical section at a time. The given code uses the “P(mutex)” and “V(mutex)” operations. “P(mutex)” represents a request to access the mutex (or decrement its value by 1), while “V(mutex)” represents releasing the mutex (or incrementing its value by 1).

Since the mutex is initialized to 1, at most one process can be inside the critical section at any moment. This means that the largest number of processes that can be inside the critical section at any time is 1.