Parallel Programming in Zig: Threads, Shared Memory, and Synchronization

Introduction This post continues my exploration of low-level programming and the Zig language. Today, we will explore the fundamental concepts of parallel programming. We'll start by defining what threads are, then move on to spawning them in Zig, and finally, we'll see how to handle shared memory safely using synchronization primitives. Step 1: The Basic Process Every program runs as a process with at least one thread. Let's start by creating a simple task and running it in our main function. At this stage, everything is sequential. const std = @import ( "std" ); pub fn main () ! void { std . debug . print ( "Starting main thread... \n " , . {}); task ( 1 ); std . debug . print ( "Finished main thread. \n " , . {}); } fn task ( id : usize ) void { std . debug . print ( "task {} is running \n " , . { id }); var ts = std . posix . timespec { . sec = 1 , . nsec = 0 }; _ = std . posix . system . nanosleep ( & ts , & ts ); } Output: Starting main thread... task 1 is running Finished main t