låskonflikt

Låskonflikt, often translated as lock contention or deadlock in English, is a situation that can arise in concurrent computing environments where multiple processes or threads require exclusive access to shared resources. When two or more of these processes are blocked indefinitely, each waiting for a resource that is held by another process in the group, a låskonflikt occurs. This prevents any of the involved processes from proceeding.

The fundamental cause of a låskonflikt is the way locks are acquired and released. A process might acquire a lock on resource A, then attempt to acquire a lock on resource B. Simultaneously, another process might acquire a lock on resource B and then attempt to acquire a lock on resource A. If these attempts happen in quick succession, both processes can become stuck, each holding one resource and waiting for the other.

Detecting and resolving låskonflikter is a crucial aspect of designing robust concurrent systems. Various strategies exist, including deadlock prevention, where the system is designed to avoid the conditions that lead to deadlocks. Deadlock detection and recovery mechanisms are also employed, where the system identifies a deadlock and then takes action to break it, often by terminating one or more of the involved processes and releasing their resources. Careful resource ordering and timeout mechanisms can also help mitigate the occurrence of låskonflikter.