I have a general question regarding differences between Critical Section and Mutex.
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From what I understand?both allow you to "lock" pieces of code into an atomic operation by allowing access to only a single thread at-a-time, therefore preventing race conditions.
The difference seems to be that a Critical Section can only synchronize threads inside a single process, while a Mutex will synchronize between processes.?
Critical Section is also faster than a Mutex.
Are the statements above correct?
If yes, then here is my question: on a Simpl windows program with simpl+ and simpl# modules, what is a "process"? Is it just the module instance or is it the whole program?(the aggregate of simpl, simpl+ and simpl# altogether) ?
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Case in point:?
I have a simpl# module that logs a bunch of strings to a file, lets call it Module A.?Then I have a separate module that sends the file to an email as an attachment, lets call it Module B.
Module A currently has a critical section to protect the "write-to-file" piece of code so multiple threads don't fight over it. More specifically, it's a streamwriter with a proper try-catch-finally, all wrapped around a Critical Section.
Module B simply grabs the file produced by Module A and sends out as an email attachment. Module B is totally decoupled from Module A and a request to send an email can come at anytime. The only shared resource they have in common is "the file".
For now, there is no protection in case Module B tries to grab the file while Module A happens to be writing to it.
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What is the best practice here? is a Mutex the way to go about protecting the file from ever getting corrupted??
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Thanks in advance,
Fabio
fabiodaubermann