The Producer-Consumer problem is a classical synchronization problem in operating systems. In this problem, there is a shared memory buffer of a fixed size, and two processes access the buffer: the Producer and the Consumer. The Producer creates new items and adds them to the buffer, while the Consumer picks items from the shared buffer. The problem is to ensure synchronization between the Producer and the Consumer such that while the Producer is adding an item to the buffer, the Consumer does not start accessing it. The Producer should not try to add items to the buffer when it is full, and the Consumer should not access the buffer when it is empty.
To solve this problem, we need two counting semaphores: Full and Empty. Full keeps track of the number of items in the buffer at any given time, and Empty keeps track of the number of unoccupied slots. We also need a mutex, which is used for mutual exclusion so that only one process can access the shared buffer at a time. Using the wait() and signal() operations on these semaphores, we can arrive at a solution.
The Producer process waits for the Empty semaphore, which means that the Producer process is kept in busy-waiting if the buffer is full. The Producer then adds an item to the buffer and uses the signal() operation on the Full semaphore, increasing its value by 1, indicating that an item has been added to the shared buffer. The Consumer process waits for the Full semaphore, which means that the Consumer process is kept in busy-waiting if the buffer is empty. The Consumer then removes an item from the buffer and uses the signal() operation on the Empty semaphore, increasing its value by 1, indicating that an item has been removed from the shared buffer.
In summary, the Producer-Consumer problem is a synchronization problem in operating sys...
