Increment a shared counter safely.

C++: Atomic increments prevent lost updates when two threads change the same counter.

C++ snippet.cpp
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <string_view>
#include <vector>
#include <array>
#include <algorithm>
#include <numeric>
#include <map>
#include <unordered_map>
#include <set>
#include <queue>
#include <stack>
#include <deque>
#include <tuple>
#include <bitset>
#include <memory>
#include <optional>
#include <variant>
#include <functional>
#include <charconv>
#include <regex>
#include <fstream>
#include <sstream>
#include <filesystem>
#include <iomanip>
#include <cmath>
#include <cctype>
#include <limits>
#include <chrono>
#include <thread>
#include <future>
#include <mutex>
#include <atomic>
#include <condition_variable>

int main() {
    std::cout << std::boolalpha;
    std::atomic<int> count{0};
    auto increment=[&]{for (int i=0;i<1000;i++) ++count;};
    std::thread first(increment),second(increment);
    first.join(); second.join();
    std::cout << count.load() << "\n";
}

Expected output EXAMPLE

2000

Details

Save as snippet.cpp; compile with g++ -std=c++17 -Wall -Wextra snippet.cpp -pthread -o snippet, then run ./snippet. Atomic increments prevent lost updates when two threads change the same counter.

✓ Verified

Tested on Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS · · g++ (Ubuntu 13.3.0-6ubuntu2~24.04.1) 13.3.0 · g++ 4:13.2.0-7ubuntu1

Test inputs, results and environment

The exact published code ran in a dedicated Linux test container with prepared inputs. Unprivileged snippet process, external networking disabled, read-only root filesystem, and a fresh temporary working directory. Fixtures and output records are isolated from the application database. Testing covers this example and its stated checks, not every input, operating system, or runtime version. The Linux container shares its host's kernel; this is not a native Windows test.

Architecture / host kernel
x86_64 / 6.18.54.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
Snippet identity / locale
uid=65534, gid=65534 (unprivileged) / C.UTF-8
Interpreter invocation
g++ -std=c++17 -Wall -Wextra -Werror snippet.cpp -pthread -lm -o snippet && ./snippet
Container image ID
sha256:32dc2d998158b6554c99b73b533f423696a0f3e31e8cbea9db10b5eee9a2fadd
Code SHA-256
76af71434e7ef5dda63eb8da1e0787f5c2c64fc2aa7cefa1168c20bb7f1ee487
Dependencies
g++ 4:13.2.0-7ubuntu1

Test input setup

These are the prepared inputs used by the test harness. See Details above for the prerequisites and how to run this example.

# No input files required.

Observed standard output

2000

Exit code: 0. Standard error: empty. Validation: Exact stdout comparison. System-dependent values above are one recorded run.