Thread Concepts

Overview of threads

Threads are independent running units that are smaller than processes.

• Thread is an execution unit in a process and is the basic unit of operating system scheduling.

• Threads are entities in a process. A process can contain multiple threads, which share the resources of the process but can execute independently.

Thread properties

• Multiple threads can execute concurrently

• A thread can create another thread

• Threads are dynamic

• Each thread also has its own data structure, namely the thread control block

• In the same process, each thread shares the same address space (that is, the storage space of the process to which it belongs)

• Threads in one process are invisible in another process

• Communication between threads in the same process is mainly based on global variables