Semaphores failing to wait, with reason "Resource temporarily unavailable"

Question

I'm trying to have a parent process wait on multiple child processes signalling, before the parent continues, using an array of unnamed semaphores (one per child process). However, when using sem_wait(), the parent process waits indefinitely, while sem_trywait() returns a "resource temporarily unavailable" error, and continues without the child processes having signalled. Neither sem_init() nor sem_post() return an error.

Relevent portion of the code:

int numsems = concurrent_instrs.size();
std::cout << "Num sems: " << numsems << "\n";
// create semaphores
sem_t* sems = new sem_t[numsems];
for (int i = 0; i < numsems; i++)
{
    if (sem_init(&sems[i], 1, 0) < 0)
    {
        perror("sem initialization failed");
        exit(1);
    }
}

int child_num = 0;

// perform all calculations in block concurrently
for(unsigned int i = 0; i < concurrent_instrs.size() && !isChild; i++)
{
    int pid = fork();
    if (pid == -1)
    {
        perror("Error forking:");
        exit(1);
    }
    if (pid == 0)
    {
        isChild = true;
        instr = concurrent_instrs[i];
    }
    else
    {
        child_num++;
    }
}
if (isChild)
{
    std::cout << "Child process " << child_num << " calculating: " << instr << "\n";
    perform_calculation(instr, input_vars, internal_vars, shm_input, shm_internal);
    std::cout << "Child process " << child_num << " finished calculating\n";

    if (sem_post(&sems[child_num]) < 0)
    {
        perror("Child signal failed");
    }

    std::cout << "Child "<< child_num << " signalled\n";

    // detach from shared memory
    if (shmdt(shm_input) < 0)
    {
        perror("child shm_input detach failed");
    }
    if (shmdt(shm_internal) < 0)
    {
        perror("child shm_internal detach failed");
    }
    exit(0);
}
else
{
    // parent waits for all children to finish
    for (int i = 0; i < numsems; i++)
    {
        std::cout << "Waiting on subprocess " << i << " of " << numsems << "\n";
        if (sem_trywait(&sems[i]) < 0)
            perror("Parent wait failed");
        else
            std::cout << "Parent wait " << i << " working\n";
    }
    std::cout << "Finished waiting\n";

    // destroy semaphores
    for (int i = 0; i < numsems; i++)
    {
        if(sem_destroy(&sems[i]) < 0)
        {
            perror("Sem destroy failed");
            exit(2);
        }
        else
        {
            std::cout << "Sem " << i << " destroyed\n";
        }
    }

    delete[] sems;
}

Am I setting something up incorrectly, or just misunderstanding how to use semaphores in this situation?

Edit to add: sem_wait() encounters the error regardless of whether the child processes call sem_post() before or after the wait.

Answer 1

The semaphores allocated with sem_t* sems = new sem_t[numsems]; are not in the shared memory. Therefore each process has its own copy, and posting in the child doesn't affect the parent.

The parent's copy remains locked. sem_trywait fails with EAGAIN, which translates to resource temporarily unavailable explanation.