A thread is usually defined as a “light weight process” because an operating system (OS) maintains smaller data structures for a thread than for a process. In relation to this, which of the following is TRUE?
(A) On per-thread basis, the OS maintains only CPU register state
(B) The OS does not maintain a separate stack for each thread
(C) On per-thread basis, the OS does not maintain virtual memory state
(D) On per-thread basis, the OS maintains only scheduling and accounting information
Answer: (C)
Explanation: Threads share address space of Process. Virtually memory is concerned with processes not with Threads.
A thread is a basic unit of CPU utilization, consisting of a program counter, a stack, and a set of registers, (and a thread ID.) As you can see, for a single thread of control – there is one program counter, and one sequence of instructions that can be carried out at any given time and for multi-threaded applications-there are multiple threads within a single process, each having their own program counter, stack and set of registers, but sharing common code, data, and certain structures such as open files.
Option (A): as you can see in the above diagram, NOT ONLY CPU Register but stack and code files, data files are also maintained. So, option (A) is not correct as it says OS maintains only CPU register state.
Option (B): according to option (B), OS does not maintain a separate stack for each thread. But as you can see in above diagram, for each thread, separate stack is maintained. So this option is also incorrect.
Option (C): according to option (C), the OS does not maintain virtual memory state. And It is correct as Os does not maintain any virtual memory state for individual thread.
Option (D): according to option (D), the OS maintains only scheduling and accounting information. But it is not correct as it contains other information like cpu registers stack, program counters, data files, code files are also maintained.
Reference:
https://www.cs.uic.edu/~jbell/CourseNotes/OperatingSystems/4_Threads.html
This solution is contributed by Nitika Bansal
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