Regarding Monitor & Semaphore

[Johnson David]

HI,

I have the fallowing doubt

what is the difference between a Monitor and a Semaphore ?

thanks in advanced,

Johnson

[Henry Wong]

 

Originally posted by Johnson David:
HI,

I have the fallowing doubt

what is the difference between a Monitor and a Semaphore ?

thanks in advanced,

Johnson

These are just different terminologies. A Monitor is best regarded as a generic term for a synchronization lock, although I have seen cases where it is used to refer to the condition variable functionality too. (The condition variable is the wait()/notify() support of the object class)

A semaphore is also a generic term for a synchronization lock -- although it is not used very often in this regard. Most likely, when this term is used, it is used to refer to a counting semaphore, which is a lock that keeps track of a count of permits. With Java 5.0, counting semaphore support was added with the Semaphore class.

Henry