Question

In the small, picturesque town of Pastelville, there is a lovely bakery called "Sweet Harmony." This bakery is famous for its scrumptious pastries and charming atmosphere. The bakery has a limited number of tables for customers to sit and enjoy their treats. To maintain the pleasant ambiance, they have a unique rule: at any given time, there can only be an equal number of customers wearing red and blue outfits inside the bakery. Sweet Harmony’s staff must manage the following aspects: 1. Allowing customers to enter the bakery while maintaining the equal number of red and blue outfits rule. 2. Ensuring customers can find a table to sit at or wait for a table to become available. 3. Managing the queue of customers waiting outside the bakery when the equal outfit rule cannot be maintained. 4. Handling customers leaving the bakery, freeing up tables, and allowing new customers to enter. A C program can be developed using semaphores, processes, and thread mutex locks to address the above challenges: 1. Semaphores can be used to manage the equal outfit rule, allowing only customers with matching outfits to enter. 2. Processes can represent individual customers and their actions (entering the bakery, finding a table, waiting, and leaving). 3. Thread mutex locks can be used to synchronize the available tables, ensuring customers can only sit at a free table. 4. Additional semaphores can be used to manage the waiting queue outside the bakery. By utilizing semaphores, processes, and thread mutex locks, the C program can effectively simulate the charming environment at Sweet Harmony bakery, while addressing the concurrency issues and unique outfit rule that arise in this scenario.

Answer 1

Step-by-step explanation:

Your description outlines a thoughtful approach to managing the customer flow and outfit rule at Sweet Harmony bakery using C programming with semaphores, processes, and thread mutex locks. This approach demonstrates the use of concurrent programming concepts to maintain a pleasant atmosphere while ensuring that the equal outfit rule is upheld. Here's a brief summary of how each element can be applied:

1. **Semaphores:** Semaphores are a valuable tool for enforcing the equal outfit rule. You can use two semaphores, one for customers wearing red outfits and another for those in blue. Before a customer enters, they must check the appropriate semaphore to ensure there's room for their outfit color. This mechanism ensures that the equal outfit rule is maintained.

2. **Processes:** Modeling individual customers as processes is an effective way to simulate their actions. Each process can represent a customer, and you can define the sequence of actions they take, such as entering the bakery, searching for a table, waiting in the queue if necessary, and leaving when finished.

3. **Thread Mutex Locks:** Mutex locks can be employed to manage table availability. When a customer enters and looks for a table, they must lock the table they choose. If a table is already occupied, the customer will wait until it becomes available. Mutex locks ensure that only one customer can access a table at a time, preventing conflicts.

4. **Additional Semaphores:** To manage the queue of customers waiting outside when the equal outfit rule cannot be maintained, you can use an additional semaphore. Customers waiting outside can signal this semaphore when they wish to enter, and the program can decide when it's their turn based on the current outfit distribution inside the bakery.

By combining these techniques, you can create a C program that effectively models the bakery's operation, maintains a pleasant ambiance, enforces the outfit rule, and handles customer flow in a synchronized and orderly manner. This approach showcases the power of concurrent programming in addressing real-world scenarios with specific requirements.