Oprating System

II BCA I Semester (2023-24)

BCA- II Year, I semester
Department of Information Technology,
Vignan's Foundation for Science, Technology & Research
(Deemed to be University),
Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India

IT- Department Vignan university,vadlamudi

Batch – 10
221FJ01071- Suraj Kumar Singh
221FJ01062- Saramalla Manikanta
221FJ01075- Ummareddy Varshini
221FJ01053- N . Mercy grace

This paper delves into the intricacies of the

Title: Dinning philoshpher in critical section .
1. Abstract :
The Dining Philosophers problem, a
classic synchronization and concurrency
challenge in computer science,
encapsulates the complexities of managing
shared resources among multiple processes
in a concurrent system. This problem serves
as a fundamental illustration of the critical
section problem, highlighting the need for
proper synchronization mechanisms to
prevent race conditions and ensure the
integrity of shared resources.
The critical section problem underlines the
necessity for processes to execute certain
segments of code exclusively to prevent
data corruption or unintended outcomes. In
the context of the Dining Philosophers
problem, the critical section pertains to the
act of acquiring forks to eat. Various
synchronization mechanisms, such as
semaphores or mutexes, can be applied to
address this issue.
Dining Philosophers problem, discussing
its relevance in concurrent systems and its
representation using formal models like
Petri nets or finite state machines.
Furthermore, it explores different strategies
for tackling the problem, including
solutions based on deadlock avoidance,
resource allocation graphs, and other
concurrency control techniques. The
importance of efficient synchronization
mechanisms in enhancing system
performance while mitigating deadlocks
and resource contention is also discussed.
2. Introduction :
The Dining Philosophers problem is a classic
synchronization and concurrency problem in
computer science and operating systems. It
illustrates challenges related to resource
sharing and coordination among multiple
processes in a parallel computing environment.
The problem was formulated by E.W. Dijkstra
in 1965 to illustrate the difficulties of managing
concurrent access to shared resources.

Figure 1
The Dining Philosophers problem presents a
scenario where a certain number of
philosophers are seated around a circular dining
table. Each philosopher alternates between
thinking and eating. There are forks placed
between each pair of adjacent philosophers, and
to eat, a philosopher needs to pick up both the
fork to their left and the fork to their right.
Figure 2
The key challenge in this scenario arises when
multiple philosophers attempt to pick up the
same fork(s) concurrently. If not properly
synchronized, this can lead to deadlocks,
livelocks, or resource contention issues. To
ensure that the philosophers can dine without
any issues, proper synchronization mechanisms
must be implemented.
The Critical Section:
The term "critical section" refers to a portion of
the code that accesses shared resources or
variables that should not be accessed
simultaneously by multiple threads or
processes. In the context of the Dining
Philosophers problem, the critical section refers
to the code segment where a philosopher
attempts to pick up the forks to their left and
right in order to eat. Since the forks are shared
resources, they need to be accessed in a
mutually exclusive manner to avoid conflicts.
To solve the Dining Philosophers problem,
synchronization mechanisms like semaphores,
mutexes (mutual exclusion), and other
concurrency control techniques can be
employed. These mechanisms ensure that only
one philosopher at a time can access the forks
and thus avoid contention.
A common solution to the problem involves the
following steps:
Each philosopher must acquire the right and left
forks before eating. If both forks are available,
the philosopher can enter the critical section
and eat.
To prevent deadlocks, philosophers are given a
protocol to follow: they must pick up the forks
in a way that avoids circular waiting. For
instance, philosophers with even indices could
first pick up their left fork, while those with odd
indices could first pick up their right fork.
If a philosopher cannot acquire both forks,
they release any forks they have picked up
and return to a thinking state.
After a philosopher finishes eating, they
release the forks, allowing other
philosophers to access them.
The use of synchronization primitives like
semaphores or mutexes ensures that only
one philosopher can access the critical
 section (pick up forks) at a time, preventing
conflicts.
By properly managing the critical section,
synchronization mechanisms ensure that
philosophers can dine without deadlocks or
resource conflicts. However, implementing
an efficient solution requires careful
consideration of the synchronization
strategy to avoid potential issues like
livelocks or inefficient resource utilization.
3. Related Work
The problem is typically stated as follows:
Problem Statement:
There are five philosophers sitting around a
circular dining table. Each philosopher spends
their time thinking and eating. There is a single
fork placed between each pair of adjacent
philosophers, and they require two forks to eat.
The goal is to design a synchronization scheme
that ensures that the philosophers can alternate
between eating and thinking without causing
deadlocks, starvation, or resource conflicts.
Figure 3
Rules and Constraints:
A philosopher can only do one of two things at
a time: think or eat.
To eat, a philosopher must pick up the two forks
to their left and right.
A philosopher must wait until both forks they
want to use are available.
Once a philosopher finishes eating, they put
down the forks, allowing others to use them.
Philosophers should not interfere with each
other's actions, i.e., they cannot forcibly take a
fork from another philosopher.
Deadlocks (when philosophers are stuck
waiting for each other to release a fork) and
resource contention (multiple philosophers
trying to access the same forks) should be
avoided.
Solution:
Various solutions to the Dining Philosophers
problem exist, demonstrating different
strategies for avoiding deadlocks and ensuring
fair access to resources. One classical solution
uses semaphores or mutex locks to manage the
forks' access. Here's a high-level overview of
the solution:
Each philosopher is represented as a separate
thread.
Each fork is associated with a semaphore or
mutex lock to control access to it.
Before attempting to eat, a philosopher must
acquire both the left and right forks. If one or
both forks are unavailable, the philosopher will
wait until they are available.
After eating, the philosopher releases both
forks, allowing others to use them.
To avoid potential deadlocks, philosophers are
organized such that they follow a consistent
pattern when picking up forks (e.g., always
picking up the lower-numbered fork first).
A global mechanism is used to limit the number
of philosophers allowed to pick up forks
simultaneously, reducing contention.
The problem is typically stated as follows:
Problem Statement:
There are five philosophers sitting around a
circular dining table. Each philosopher spends
their time thinking and eating. There is a single
fork placed between each pair of adjacent
philosophers, and they require two forks to eat.
The goal is to design a synchronization scheme
that ensures that the philosophers can alternate
between eating and thinking without causing
deadlocks, starvation, or resource conflicts.
Rules and Constraints:
A philosopher can only do one of two things at
a time: think or eat.
To eat, a philosopher must pick up the two forks
to their left and right.
A philosopher must wait until both forks they
want to use are available.
Once a philosopher finishes eating, they put
down the forks, allowing others to use them.
Philosophers should not interfere with each
other's actions, i.e., they cannot forcibly take a
fork from another philosopher.
Deadlocks (when philosophers are stuck
waiting for each other to release a fork) and
resource contention (multiple philosophers
trying to access the same forks) should be
avoided.
Solution:
Various solutions to the Dining Philosophers
problem exist, demonstrating different
strategies for avoiding deadlocks and ensuring
fair access to resources. One classical solution
uses semaphores or mutex locks to manage the
forks' access. Here's a high-level overview of
the solution:
Each philosopher is represented as a separate
thread.
Each fork is associated with a semaphore or
mutex lock to control access to it.
Before attempting to eat, a philosopher must
acquire both the left and right forks. If one or
both forks are unavailable, the philosopher will
wait until they are available.
After eating, the philosopher releases both
forks, allowing others to use them.
To avoid potential deadlocks, philosophers are
organized such that they follow a consistent
pattern when picking up forks (e.g., always
picking up the lower-numbered fork first).
A global mechanism is used to limit the number
of philosophers allowed to pick up forks
simultaneously, reducing contention.
4. Framework for particular model
Dining Philosophers Problem:
The Dining Philosophers problem is a
classic synchronization and concurrency
problem in computer science and operating
systems. It was formulated by E.W.
Dijkstra in 1965 to illustrate the challenges
of managing multiple processes that share
resources in a concurrent environment.
The problem imagines five philosophers
sitting around a circular dining table. Each
philosopher alternates between thinking
and eating. There's a bowl of spaghetti in
the center, and each philosopher needs two
forks to eat. However, there are only five
forks available, one between each pair of
philosophers.
The challenge is to design a protocol (a set
of rules) that allows the philosophers to
alternate between thinking and eating in a
 way that avoids deadlocks (where all
philosophers are waiting for a resource) and
avoids resource contention (where multiple
philosophers try to access the same fork
simultaneously).
Critical Section:
The critical section refers to a part of a
program or code where shared resources
(like variables, data structures, or devices)
are accessed or modified. In a multi-
threaded or multi-process environment, it's
crucial to ensure that only one thread or
process can be inside the critical section at
a time. This prevents race conditions, where
multiple threads might manipulate the
shared resource simultaneously and lead to
unpredictable behavior.
Now, tying these concepts together:
The Dining Philosophers problem can be
seen as an analogy for the challenges of
managing access to critical sections in a
concurrent system. Each philosopher
represents a thread or process, and the forks
represent the shared resources that they
need to access (analogous to a critical
section). The challenge is to design a
synchronization mechanism that allows the
philosophers to "eat" (access the critical
section) without running into problems like
deadlocks or resource contention.
Solving the Dining Philosophers problem
requires careful consideration of
synchronization techniques like
semaphores, mutexes, or monitors, which
are tools used in programming to control
access to shared resources. These
techniques ensure that only a limited
number of philosophers can access the
forks (critical section) at any given time,
preventing conflicts and ensuring orderly
access.
5. Experiments/case study :
It seems like you're asking about the dining
philosophers problem and how to explain it in
the context of critical sections. The dining
philosophers problem is a classic
synchronization and concurrency problem used
to illustrate issues that can arise in multi-
threaded or multi-process environments. It
helps highlight the challenges of resource
allocation and synchronization in parallel
computing systems.
Problem Statement:
The dining philosophers problem presents a
scenario in which a group of philosophers sit
around a circular dining table. Each
philosopher alternates between thinking and
eating. There is a bowl of rice placed between
each pair of adjacent philosophers, and a single
fork is placed between each pair of
philosophers. To eat, a philosopher needs two
forks, one from each side of their plate.
The challenge here is to design a solution that
allows the philosophers to take turns between
thinking and eating, while preventing
deadlocks (where no philosopher can proceed
because they are all waiting for a fork held by
another philosopher) and avoiding resource
contention.
Solution and Explanation:
To address the dining philosophers problem,
various synchronization strategies can be
employed. One common approach is to use a
mutex (short for mutual exclusion) for each
fork. A mutex is a synchronization primitive
that allows only one thread to access a critical
section of code (in this case, accessing the
forks) at a time.
Here's a high-level explanation of a solution
using mutexes:
1. Each philosopher is represented as a separate
thread or process.
2. Each fork is associated with a mutex to
ensure exclusive access.
3. A philosopher can only pick up both forks if
they are available (mutexes are unlocked).
4. When a philosopher wants to eat, they try to
acquire both forks' mutexes. If one of the forks
is unavailable (mutex locked by another
philosopher), they release any acquired forks,
go back to thinking, and retry later.
5. After eating, the philosopher releases both
forks' mutexes so that other philosophers can
use them.
This solution ensures that philosophers can
access the forks without conflicts and prevents
deadlocks by ensuring that a philosopher can
only pick up both forks simultaneously or none
at all.
Experiment:
An experiment to demonstrate the dining
philosophers problem would involve creating a
simulation with multiple philosopher
threads/processes and forks, following the
solution approach outlined above. You would
need to implement the synchronization
mechanisms (mutexes) and the logic for
philosophers to think, pick up forks, eat, and
release forks. The experiment can be
implemented using a programming language
with support for multi-threading or multi-
processing, such as Python with the `threading`
module.
The experiment should showcase scenarios
where philosophers alternate between thinking
and eating, while avoiding deadlocks and
resource contention. You can observe how the
synchronization mechanisms ensure that the
philosophers can share resources peacefully.
Remember that the primary goal of the
experiment is to illustrate the challenges of
concurrent resource access and how
synchronization techniques like mutexes can be
used to prevent issues like deadlocks.
6. Conclusion :
In conclusion, the dining philosophers problem
serves as a powerful illustration of the
complexities and challenges that arise in
concurrent and parallel computing
environments. This classic problem highlights
several key concepts and lessons:
Resource Contention: In a multi-threaded or
multi-process environment, multiple entities
might need access to shared resources
simultaneously. This can lead to conflicts and
contention, causing inefficiencies and potential
deadlocks.
Deadlocks: Deadlocks occur when multiple
processes or threads are unable to proceed
because they are all waiting for resources held
by each other. The dining philosophers problem
demonstrates how improper resource allocation
and synchronization can lead to deadlocks.
Synchronization: Synchronization
mechanisms, such as mutexes, semaphores, and
locks, are essential for coordinating access to
shared resources. These mechanisms ensure
that only one thread or process can access a
critical section of code at a time, preventing
race conditions and conflicts.
Concurrency Issues: The problem emphasizes
the need for carefully designed solutions to
manage concurrency issues. Incorrect
synchronization can lead to bugs that are hard
to reproduce and diagnose.
Trade-offs: Solutions to the dining
philosophers problem often involve trade-offs
between efficiency and correctness. Ensuring
that philosophers can always access forks
might lead to lower throughput, while allowing
multiple philosophers to grab a fork could
result in contention and deadlocks.
concurrent programming and the significance
of synchronization mechanisms. By addressing
the dining philosophers problem, we gain a
deeper understanding of how to design and
implement reliable, efficient, and scalable
multi-threaded and multi-process systems.

Algorithm Design: The problem encourages

algorithmic creativity. Designing a solution
that allows philosophers to eat without
deadlocks requires careful consideration of the
order in which they attempt to pick up forks. 7. References:

Real-world Relevance: While the dining

philosophers problem might seem abstract, it
reflects real-world challenges in distributed
systems, operating systems, and parallel
computing. It offers insights into how to design
reliable and efficient systems.
In the context of critical sections and
synchronization, the dining philosophers
problem teaches us about the importance of
managing access to shared resources to avoid
conflicts and deadlocks. It's a valuable learning
tool for computer science students and
practitioners to understand the intricacies of
Scaler
https://www.scaler.com/topics/operating-
system/dining-philosophers-problem-in-os/
Geeksforgeeks
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/dining-
philosopher-problem-using-semaphores/
“Operating System Concepts”
❑ Abraham Silber Schatz Peter B. Galvin and
Greg Gagne, 8th Edition, Wiley, 2008.

THANK YOU