Richard Crowley personal blog
Things Unix can do atomically (2010)
This is a catalog of things UNIX-like/POSIX-compliant operating systems can do atomically, making them useful as building blocks for thread-safe and multi-process-safe programs without mutexes or read/write locks. The list is by no means exhaustive and I expect it to be updated frequently for the foreseeable future.
- Points
- 257
- HN comments
- 212
- Submissions
- 4
- Cited by
- 5 commenters
Systems & PerformanceSoftware Engineering2026
On Hacker News
| Submitted | Title on HN | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 6, 2026 | Things Unix can do atomically (2010) by onurkanbkrc | 257 | 94 |
| May 30, 2016 | Things Unix can do atomically (2010) by turrini | 207 | 62 |
| Aug 14, 2023 | Things Unix can do atomically (2010) by pabs3 | 170 | 49 |
| May 12, 2010 | Things Unix can do atomically by helwr | 62 | 7 |
Cited in comments
Linked from 6 Hacker News comments by 5 different people, from Jun 2014 to Feb 2026.
Most recent:
