The sem_post function unlocks the specified semaphore by performing the semaphore unlock operation on that semaphore. The appropriate function (sem_open for named semaphores or sem_init for unnamed semaphores) must be called for a semaphore before you can call the locking and unlocking functions, sem_wait, sem_ trywait, and sem_post. If the semaphore value after a sem_post function is positive, no processes were blocked waiting for the semaphore to be unlocked; the semaphore value is incremented. If the semaphore value after a sem_post function is zero, one of the processes blocked waiting for the semaphore is allowed to return successfully from its call to sem_wait. If more than one process is blocked while waiting for the semaphore, only one process is unblocked and the state of the semaphore remains unchanged when the sem_post function returns. The process to be unblocked is selected according to the scheduling policies and priorities of all blocked processes. If the scheduling policy is SCHED_FIFO or SCHED_RR, the highest- priority waiting process is unblocked. If more than one process of that priority is blocked, then the process that has waited the longest is unblocked. The sem_post function can be called from a signal-catching function.