What is a busy waiting and how is it solved?
Busy waiting, also known as spinning, or busy looping is a process synchronization technique in which a process/task waits and constantly checks for a condition to be satisfied before proceeding with its execution.
How do I get rid of busy waiting?
To avoid busy waiting, a semaphore may use an associated queue of processes that are waiting on the semaphore, allowing the semaphore to block the process and then wake it when the semaphore is incremented.
What is the difference between busy waiting and blocking?
Answer. With busy waiting, a process keeps testing for some condition. It is constantly using the CPU, sitting in a tight loop. Withblocking, a process gives up the CPU and is awakened later when the condition that is being waited for has become true.
What is busy waiting example?
Busy waiting is where a process checks repeatedly for a condition- it is “waiting” for the condition, but it is “busy” checking for it. This will make the process eat CPU (usually). For example, I have a process that wants to know if there is an internet connection.
Why does busy waiting happen?
In computer science and software engineering, busy-waiting, busy-looping or spinning is a technique in which a process repeatedly checks to see if a condition is true, such as whether keyboard input or a lock is available.
What is a disadvantage of busy waiting?
A disadvantage of busy-waiting in embedded devices is the increased power consumption. In a busy wait, the processor is running full-blast, consuming power with no result.
Is busy waiting Bad?
Abstract. A busy wait loop is a loop which repeatedly checks whether an event occurs. Busy wait loops for process synchronization and com- munication are considered bad practice because (1) system failures may occur due to race conditions and (2) system resources are wasted by busy wait loops.
Is there any benefit to busy waiting?
Advantages of busy-waiting: The execution flow is usually easier to comprehend and thus less error prone. Timing can be determined more accurately in some cases.
What causes busy waiting?
Explain your answer. Answer: Busy waiting means that a process is waiting for a condition to be satisfied in a tight loop without relinquishing the processor. Alternatively, a process could wait by relinquishing the processor, and block on a condition and wait to be awakened at some appropriate time in the future.
Can busy waiting be avoided?
Busy waiting cannot be avoided altogether. Some events cannot trigger a wakeup; for example, on Unix a process cannot “sleep until a file is modified,” because the operating system does not provide any mechanism to automatically wake up the process when the event occurs; some amount of repeated polling is required.
Is busy waiting good?
Although for efficiency reasons busy waiting is employed in operating system kernels for process synchronization ( “spin locks” ) , it is considered bad practice to use it for task synchronization and task communication in application programs. Busy waiting results in a waste of system resources.
Is busy waiting always less or more efficient?
Busy waiting is always less efficient than a blocking wait operation.