What is mutually exclusive?

Answer 1

It is one of thecharacteristics of deadlock. When semaphores are used or mutual exclusion, the semaphore has an initial value of 1, and P() is called before the critical section, and V() is called after the critical section as shown below :

semaphore-> P();

critical section

semaphore-> V();

remainder section

let us suppose that one process A is already executing its critical section then it implies that semaphore value at that time is zero. If process B now tries to enter this critical section , it cannot enter the critical section because it will have to wait before semaphore becomes greater than zero. This is possible only when process A executes its signal operation; after executing its critical section.

Answer 2

Two or more events are said to be mutually exclusive if no two of them can occur together. It is a way of classifying data so that any particular observation can fall into at most one category.

It need not fall into any category unless the classification system is also EXHAUSTIVE.