what is the purpose of atomic_t?

[johny10151981]

Can anyone explain

what is the purpose of atomic_t

in types.h(linux) I found the definition like this

typedef struct 
{ 
  int counter;
} atomic_t;

But I cant understand the purpose of this definition.

Best Regards,
johny

[weaknessforcats]

Someone has defined a struct with an int member as atomic_t.

You can now use atomic_t as a type.

types.h is a non-ANSI header so I don't know the reason for this.

[newb16]

The purpose of atomic_t is to implement a type and a set of functions that can operate on it correctly from different threads without requiring synchronization like mutexes. It is implemented in its own way on a specific platform so that it's guaranteed by implementation.

[weaknessforcats]

Thank you for the clarification. I hadn't see atomic_t before not being a Linux guru.