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Thread (computing)

Smallest sequence of programmed instructions that can be managed independently by a scheduler / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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In computer science, a thread of execution is the smallest sequence of programmed instructions that can be managed independently by a scheduler, which is typically a part of the operating system.[1] The implementation of threads and processes differs between operating systems. In Modern Operating Systems, Tanenbaum shows that many distinct models of process organization are possible.[2][page needed] In many cases, a thread is a component of a process. The multiple threads of a given process may be executed concurrently (via multithreading capabilities), sharing resources such as memory, while different processes do not share these resources. In particular, the threads of a process share its executable code and the values of its dynamically allocated variables and non-thread-local global variables at any given time.

Multithreaded_process.svg
A process with two threads of execution, running on one processor
Concepts-_Program_vs._Process_vs._Thread.jpg
Program vs. Process vs. Thread
Scheduling, Preemption, Context Switching