Understanding std::shared_mutex from C++17
Hacker News
February 17, 2026
In this article, we’ll start with a basic example using std::mutex, look at its limitations, and then introduce std::shared_mutex, a reader-writer mutex added in C++17. Even in 2026, with many new concurrency features available, std::shared_mutex is still a valuable and practical tool.
Let’s jump in.
A Simple Thread-Safe Counter with std::mutex We’ll begin with a small example (a standard “hello world” for this type of mutexes): a counter object that multiple threads can access:
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Originally published on Hacker News on 2/17/2026