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# Sections (OpenMP)
Suppose you have a few independent operations — compress a buffer, encrypt a header, write a log — that share no data and could run simultaneously. A loop doesn't fit because the operations are distinct, not iterations of the same work.

**Sections** is the OpenMP construct for this case: it distributes a fixed set of independent code blocks across threads at compile time. Each block is wrapped in `#pragma omp section`.

```c
#pragma omp parallel sections
{
    #pragma omp section
    compress(data);

    #pragma omp section
    encrypt(header);

    #pragma omp section
    write_log(meta);
}
```

If there are more `section` blocks than threads, the excess blocks are queued and picked up as threads become free. If there are fewer blocks than threads, the extra threads sit idle. For a large or dynamic number of tasks, [[tasks-openmp|tasks]] are more flexible; `sections` is simpler when the count is small and fixed.