Can you explain what the term 'starvation' means in the context of multithreading or parallel systems?

In the context of multithreading or parallel systems, the term "starvation" refers to a situation where one or more threads or processes do not get the necessary access to resources to perform their work because other threads are constantly occupying these resources. As a result, a "starving" thread may remain in a waiting state for a very long time or indefinitely, never getting the chance to execute its task.

Causes of starvation can be related to thread priorities, where high-priority threads constantly gain access to resources, while low-priority threads do not. This differs from deadlock, where mutual blocking occurs.

Example: if you have several threads, and one low-priority thread is constantly interrupted by high-priority threads, it may never get CPU time to execute.

Various techniques are used to prevent starvation, such as fair scheduling, priority queues, or mechanisms to boost the priority of "starving" threads.