Single Producer and multiple consumer using multithreating

In this project, we simulate a tandoori chicken lunch buffet restaurant with one chef and multiple guests, which is similar to a single producer/multiple consumers problem. We implement one program with multiple threads, each of which holds either a chef or a guest. We also apply one synchronization tool – semaphores, which can solve an issue for synchronizing common resources with multiple threads. Through this project, we will learn how to create multi-threaded process and how to synchronize threads using semaphores. Introduction A. Producer - consumer problem The restaurant resembles a producer consumer problem: in a producer side, chefs are cooking and providing food, guests are trying to eat it when it is available. When simulating the restaurant, we have some issues, each of which can be utilized by using concepts learnt in the lectures. First, we need executable units, each of which can run simultaneously during execution. Also some resources such as food and dining tables should be shared by all guests. Multiprogramming can be a good approach, but it brings us other issues we need to consider – parallel programming or even concurrent programming. Therefore, we will apply alternative approach using multithreading, which costs less than the approaches. We will briefly review this concept in the subsection B. Second, we should manage the shared resources, e.g., food and dining tables, without any conflicts. Two guests may race to get one food, and the racing game will cause some unhappy and uncomfortable situation. These resources are so critical that we need to have a powerful tool. We can address this issue and find a powerful solution – semaphore. Semaphores can enable us to access the critical resources without any conflicts. We will briefly review this concept in the next subsection C. For simplifying this project, we model a small restaurant in which one chef works. B. Multi-threaded process Process defines an executable unit to perform a task, which is called a thread. If the process needs to run one task at the one moment, one thread is enough to be created, because the created thread may hold the next task. This process is called a single-threaded process, and this design does not fit for processes which needs to run multiple tasks simultaneously. This issue is solved by multi-threaded design, in which multiple threads can be created and run. For more information, review the chapter 4. CS 5500 Project 2 University of Central Missouri 2 C. Semaphores When multiple threads are running simultaneously, they may access the same resources declared as global variables. It has many potential problems because some changes by one thread affect other threads which need the previous information. This conflict may cause severe problems and must be avoided. Synchronization tools are developed to solve this problem. Semaphores are one of the tools. There are two types of semaphores – binary semaphore (similar to mutex) and counting semaphore. A thread which obtains the semaphore can access the critical resources, whereas other threads should wait until the semaphore is available to get. Using the semaphores, we can control accesses to the critical resources. For more information, review the chapter 5. III. Implementation The program has the similar format as the first project. When user starts the program, it will show the prompt after group ID consisting of section # and group # (that is, section#_group#> $). To simulate the restaurant, user will the following command with three parameters: tcr -option -Number of cooked food –Number of dining table You have any question mail me.