Weekly 3 Assessment Questions
A barbershop consists of a waiting room with n chairs and a barber room with one barber
chair. If there are no customers to be served, the barber goes to sleep. If a customer enters
the barbershop and all chairs are occupied, then the customer leaves the shop. If the
barber is busy but chairs are available, then the customer sits in one of the free chairs. If
the barber is asleep, the customer wakes up the barber.
Write a program to coordinate the barber and the customers.
// shared data
semaphore waiting_room_mutex = 1;
semaphore barber_room_mutex = 1;
semaphore barber_chair_free = n;
semaphore sleepy_barbers = 0;
semaphore barber_chairs[n] = {0, 0, 0, …};
int barber_chair_states[n] = {0, 0, 0, …};
int num_waiting_chairs_free = N;
boolean customer_entry( ) {
// try to make it into waiting room
wait(waiting_room_mutex);
if (num_waiting_chairs_free == 0)
{ signal(waiting_room_mutex);
return false;
}
num_waiting_chairs_free--; // grabbed a chair
signal(waiting_room_mutex);
// now, wait until there is a barber chair free
wait(barber_chair_free);
// a barber chair is free, so release waiting room chair
wait(waiting_room_mutex); wait(barber_room_mutex);
num_waiting_chairs_free++;
signal(waiting_room_mutex);
// now grab a barber chair int
mychair;
for (int I=0; I<n; I++) {
if (barber_chair_states[I] == 0) { // 0 = empty chair
mychair = I;
break;
}
}
barber_chair_states[mychair] = 1; // 1 = haircut needed
signal(barber_room_mutex);
// now wake up barber, and sleep until haircut done
signal(sleepy_barbers); wait(barber_chairs[mychair]);
// great! haircut is done, let’s leave. barber
// has taken care of the barber_chair_states array.
signal(barber_chair_free);
return true;
}
void barber_enters() {
while(1) {
// wait for a customer
wait(sleepy_barbers);
// find the customer
wait(barber_room_mutex); int
mychair;
for (int I=0; I<n; I++) {
if (barber_chair_states[I] == 1) {
mychair = I;
break;
}
}
barber_chair_states[mychair] = 2; // 2 = cutting hair
signal(barber_room_mutex);
// CUT HAIR HERE
cut_hair(mychair);
// now wake up customer wait(barber_room_mutex);
barber_chair_states[mychair] = 0; // 0 = empty chair
signal(barber_chair[mychair]);
signal(barber_room_mutex);
// all done, we’ll loop and sleep again
}
}
