What are threads?

What are threads?

Threads are lightweight processes that exist within a larger process. Threads share the same code and data segments, but have their own program counters, machine registers, and stack. Global and static variables are common to all threads, and a mutual exclusivity mechanism may be required to manage access to these variables from multiple threads within an application.

Once spawned, threads run asynchronously to one another. They can access common data elements and make OCI calls in any order. Because of this shared access to data elements, a mechanism is required to maintain the integrity of data being accessed by multiple threads.

The mechanism to manage data access takes the form of mutexes (mutual exclusivity locks), which ensure that no conflicts arise between multiple threads that are accessing shared resources within an application. In Oracle8i OCI, mutexes are granted on a per-environment-handle basis.