Another famous thread synchronization problem in computer science is the cigarette smokers problem. Unfortunately, the thematic vehicle of this example is currently out of favor. Consider a simulation with three smoker threads and one agent thread. Each smoker continuously makes a cigarette and smokes it. But to make a cigarette, a smoker needs three ingredients: tobacco, paper, and matches. One of the smoker threads has only paper, another has only tobacco, and the third has only matches. The agent thread has an infinite supply of all three materials. The three smoker threads are initially blocked. The agent places two randomly chosen (different) ingredients on the table and signals (unblocks) the one smoker who has the remaining ingredient. The agent then blocks. The signaled smoker removes the two ingredients from the table, makes a cigarette, and smokes it for a random amount of time, signaling (unblocking) the agent on completion of smoking the cigarette. The agent then puts out another random two of the three ingredients, and the cycle repeats.
Write a multi-class multithreaded Java program that uses semaphores (classes BinarySemaphore and/or CountingSemaphore) to synchronize the agent thread and the three smoker threads. No busy waiting is allowed! The agent thread executes in an agent object created from an agent class. Each smoker thread executes in a smoker object. All smoker objects are created from one smoker class whose constructor is used to specify the ingredient possessed by the smoker object. A driver class with a main method constructs the objects and starts the threads.
The input data to your Java program are (a) the amount of time in seconds that the simulation runs, and (b) the maximum time in seconds that a smoker smokes after rolling a cigarette. The maximum smoke time is used in the random number generator as follows.
int smoking = 1 + (int) random(1000*maxSmoke); nap(smoking);Place these two numbers on the command line for your program to parse. You must parse these numbers from the command line with the GetOpt class (Library Class 2.1). The command line has the form
Be careful about deadlock. It might happen like this. Suppose the agent places paper and matches on the table. The one smoker with a pouch of tobacco can now smoke if it grabs the paper and matches off the table. But what if the smoker with a book of matches grabs the paper and waits for the agent to put out the tobacco? All threads are now blocked forever! Don't let this happen in your program.
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