In computer science, a deadlock is a situation that occurs when two or more processes are blocked, or waiting for each other to release a resource that they need in order to continue running. As a result, none of the processes can proceed, and the system becomes deadlocked.
Deadlocks can occur in systems with shared resources, such as databases or operating systems. When a process requests a resource that is currently being used by another process, it may need to wait until the resource becomes available. However, if the other process is also waiting for a resource that the first process is using, a deadlock can occur.
For example, consider two processes, A and B, that each need access to two resources, X and Y. If process A acquires resource X and process B acquires resource Y, but then process A tries to acquire resource Y and process B tries to acquire resource X, both processes will be blocked, and a deadlock will occur.
Deadlocks can be difficult to detect and resolve, as they can occur intermittently and may involve multiple processes and resources. One common approach to preventing deadlocks is to use a protocol such as the two-phase locking protocol, which ensures that resources are acquired and released in a consistent order to avoid circular dependencies. Other techniques such as timeouts and resource preemption can also be used to break deadlocks when they occur.
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