The producer generates items and puts items onto the table. The consumer will pick up items. The table can only hold two items at the same time. When the table is complete, the producer will wait. When there are no items, the consumer will wait. We use semaphores to synchronize producer and consumer. Mutual exclusion should be considered. We use threads in the producer program and consumer program. Shared memory is used for the “table”.

Both the producer and consumer have their own processes, with a thread in each created and pointed to a function of the same name (i.e. consumer and producer respectively). With each thread running their own functions, a shared memory buffer with a capacity to hold two items is shared between the producer and consumer. To help prevent deadlock and other data hazards when it comes to a shared buffer, a semaphore is used to indicate use of the buffer. The number '1' indicates the buffer is currently in use, while the number '0' indicates the buffer is available for use.s

Both the producer and consumer are septate files and meant to be septate processes. There are three options within the make file. The first two being consumer and producer respectively. These compiler the producer and consumer. The last option is clean, which cleans any object (.o) files as well as the compiled program files to be executed.

Running the consumer and/or producer separately will not be of benefit as each relies on each other to run concurrently.

The following make command will compile the consumer files for execution

    make consumer

The following make command will compile the producer files for execution

    make producer

The following make command will compile the producer, consumer, and run both with the shared memory key of shmfile

    make run

The following make command will remove the compiled and executable program files

    make clean

To run both of the producer and consumer at the same time, for Linux and Unix systems, there are two options.

    ./out/consumer shmfile & ./out/producer shmfile

Using the make run command will compile and run both the producer and consumer. This is the preferred method of compilation and running the project.

Please see the Doc folder for a PDF manual/documentation packet.

• C++
• Make
• G++
• PThread Library
• SharedMem 3 Library