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<concept id="GUID-5D4B86D3-20C4-5D87-A6C1-225018D32347" xml:lang="en"><title>Thread
And Process Management Overview</title><shortdesc>This document provides an overview of thread and process management.</shortdesc><prolog><metadata><keywords/></metadata></prolog><conbody>
<section id="GUID-868C1AFC-278F-4A51-BFBE-33C7280367DE"><title>Purpose</title> <p>Provides access to processes, threads,
thread-local storage, and access synchronisation.</p> <p>These APIs provide
support for a programming style that employs multiple threads or processes
that share resource protected by synchronisation mechanisms such as mutexes.
Symbian platform provides alternatives to this style that are better suited
to a limited resource environment:</p> <ul>
<li id="GUID-92461334-670A-58ED-9EB5-DA89FE0599FD"><p>the active objects framework
provided by the Asynchronous Services API is usually preferred to multi-threading
in Symbian platform programming</p> </li>
<li id="GUID-8EE9253F-9F9A-5A92-B188-0F67807AC3C6"><p>server programs can
be used to serialise access to a shared resource</p> </li>
</ul> </section>
<section id="GUID-506E7443-F94D-473A-99B8-B13B1973DEDF"><title>Description</title> <p>Functionality is provided by a number
of APIs. Use them as follows:</p> <p><xref href="GUID-547CF71C-6A62-57C0-A9BE-E76B4286C6D6.dita">Threads
And Processes Overview</xref> </p> <p>Provides access to processes, threads,
and thread-local storage.</p> <p><xref href="GUID-E865E677-1219-500C-89CF-0A2835B91834.dita">Semaphores
Overview</xref> </p> <p>Synchronises access to shared resources within and
between processes. </p> <p><xref href="GUID-BA89F4DF-E2F6-5E0B-BF20-F8898FC5D5F8.dita">Mutexes
Overview</xref> </p> <p>Synchronises exclusive access to shared resources
within and between processes.</p> <p><xref href="GUID-B1C0C5E2-DC8D-5230-8D4B-338DF619F1D2.dita">Critical
Sections Overview</xref> </p> <p>Synchronises exclusive access to shared resources
within a single process. </p> </section>
<section id="GUID-B2E12F2E-2FDB-4149-B7B3-0C5F3029A70D"><title>See also</title> <p><xref href="GUID-1294F540-FDA7-5050-BAFB-3C9888491B98.dita">Asynchronous
Services Overview</xref> </p> <p><xref href="GUID-D0D27AEA-FDDB-5F6F-94F6-ADDF5910DC47.dita">Client/Server
Overview</xref> </p> <p><xref href="GUID-FF8F5D97-7D37-5F6B-84A3-C064E2FD53E0.dita">System
Static Functions Overview</xref> </p> </section>
</conbody></concept>