What is the reason for using mutex for synchronization between different processes?

Mutex (mutual exclusion) is used to synchronize access to shared resources between different processes to prevent race conditions and data corruption.

Reasons for using mutex in inter-process synchronization:

• Mutex guarantees that only one process can access the resource at a time.
• It provides atomicity of lock and unlock operations.
• Unlike other primitives, a mutex can be a system object accessible from different processes.

Example in C#:

using System.Threading;

Mutex mutex = new Mutex(false, "Global\MyMutexName");

if (mutex.WaitOne(5000)) // wait up to 5 seconds
{
    try
    {
        // critical section
    }
    finally
    {
        mutex.ReleaseMutex();
    }
}
else
{
    // failed to acquire access
}