Mutex

The <mutex> header contains multiple types of mutexes and locks. The mutex type is the most commonly used type, and provides the basic lock/unlock functionality without any further complications.

Basic use

At its core, the goal of a mutex is to exclude the possibility of simultaneous access so as to prevent data corruption, and to prevent crashes due to the use of non-thread-safe routines.

An example of where one would need to use a mutex is the following code:

#include <iostream> 
#include <thread> 

void worker(int i) { 
         std::cout << "Outputting this from thread number: " << i << "\n"; 
} 

int main() { 
         std::thread t1(worker, 1);
         std::thread t2(worker, 2); 

         t1.join(); 
   t2.join(); 

   return 0; 
} 

If one were to try and run this preceding code as-is, one would notice that the text output from both threads would be mashed together instead of being output one after the other. The reason for this is that the standard...