Let us try to understand the difference between Thread and Process in system programming :
1. Definition:
Process: A process is an independent program in execution. It has its own Process context and system resources, including file descriptors and signal handlers.
Thread: A thread is the smallest unit of execution within a process. Threads within the same process share the same Process context, code segment, data segment, and system resources. However, they each have their own stack region within the shared stack segment along with own code region within the shared code segment.
2. Resource Sharing:
Process: Processes do not share their process context with each other. Consequently, communication between processes typically necessitates inter-process communication (IPC) mechanisms like pipes, FIFOs, or message queues.
Thread: Threads within the same process share the same process context. This allows for more efficient communication and data sharing between threads since they can directly access the same variables and data structures in memory.
3. Isolation:
Processes are isolated from each other, meaning that if one process crashes, it typically does not affect other processes.
Threads within the same process are not isolated from each other. If one thread in a process crashes, (such as due to a segmentation fault) it can potentially crash the entire process, affecting all threads within that process. This is why it's crucial to use IPC mechanisms for communication when needed.
4. Concurrency:
Every thread is implemented as a re-entrant function. Multiple threads within the same process can run concurrently on different CPU cores, thus allowing for parallel execution of tasks.
Multiple processes can run concurrently on a system, utilizing multiple CPU cores or processors through the operating system's task scheduling and management.
Both processes and threads can achieve concurrency, but they differ in how they are implemented, how they share resources, and how they communicate and synchronize with each other.
Conclusion: To summarize, the crucial difference is that threads share memory within the same process context, making them suitable for tasks with shared data and communication needs. In contrast, processes have isolated memory, which is ideal for maintaining strong separation and fault tolerance, but may require additional overhead for inter-process communication. Both threads and processes can be scheduled to run on different CPU cores, but it's their memory sharing and isolation characteristics that set them apart.
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