What Does Race Condition Mean?
A race condition is a behavior which occurs in software applications or electronic systems, such as logic systems, where the output is dependent on the timing or sequence of other uncontrollable events. Race conditions also occur in software which supports multithreading, use a distributed environment or are interdependent on shared resources. Race conditions often lead to bugs, as these events happen in a manner that the system or programmer never intended for. It can often result in a device crash, error notification or shutdown of the application.
Techopedia Explains Race Condition
A race condition is often classified as either a critical race condition or non-critical race condition. A critical race condition occurs when the sequence in which internal variables change determines the final state of the machine. A non-critical race condition occurs when the sequence in which internal variables’ changes do not have any impact on the final state of the machine. Race conditions are notorious for being difficult to troubleshoot, as reproduction depends on the relative timing between the different elements. Sometimes, especially with software applications, the problem disappears while running in debug mode thanks to an additional logger or debugger.
