Re: [boost] Re: PThreads

From: Marshall Clow (marshall_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-08-25 10:13:48

>Damian Dixon wrote:
>
>While much current discussion is rightly focused on safety, we will
>eventually have to address the issue of platforms.  It would be very
>reassuring to be able to say our test programs run correctly on embedded
>systems.  Does the Palm Pilot OS have any native support for concurrent
>programming?

No, it doesn't.

Well, actually it does, but those services are not available. ;-)

Here's a message from Palm about it (dated Thu, 27 Apr 2000 16:06:35 -0700):

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>Hi,
>     I'll kill two birds with this stone :-)
>
>     Due to the terms of the license Palm has from Kadak Systems for
>the AMX kernel we are not permitted to release any documentation or
>provide any support for third parties using the multi-tasking aspects
>of the AMX kernel unless the third party has a separate license with
>Kadak. I won't get into why that is the case here. I should also note
>that the kernel resources used for background tasks are extremely
>limited.
>
>     Ben's note regarding using nil events is a good technique, others
>include patching EvtGetEvent or SysHandleEvent. The upshot being that
>you need to roll your own solution. In the specific case of TCP/IP,
>you can use the select call (aka NetLibSelect) to inform you whenever
>sockets are ready or when there are events pending on the event
>queue. There are some gotchas and a couple of bugs to work around,
>but structuring your event loop around NetLibSelect rather than
>EvtGetEvent will allow you to forgo having to poll sockets for
>incoming data.
>
>	Cheers,
>	Bruce Thompson
>	Partner Engineering,
>	Palm, Inc.
>
>
> >I'll give you a middle-length answer: you can't do it.
> >
> >Depending on what you're trying to do, it may be worth trapping nil events
> >and writing your own background threading. I've had to do this on a couple
> >TCP/IP programs that need to poll sockets while still accepting user data.
> >Not much fun, but you do what you have to do, I guess.
> >
> >Regards,
> >Ben Flaumenhaft
> >
> >>>  From: Ghazi Ramadan [mailto:ghazi_at_[hidden]]
> >>>  Does any one know how to create a background task on the
> >>>  PalmOS. I tried SysTaskCreate() but I couldn't figure it out since no
> >>>  documentation is available for system API's
> >>
> >>(Oh, I'll handle it this time...)
> >>
> >>Short answer: you can't do that.
> >>
> >>Long answer: http://oasis.palm.com/dev/kb/article.cfm?id=1053
> >>
> >>-slj-
> >>
> >>
> >>--
> >>For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe,
> >>please see http://www.palm.com/devzone/mailinglists.html
> >
> >
> >--
> >For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please
> >see http://www.palm.com/devzone/mailinglists.html
>
>- --
>- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Bruce Thompson		| "Pinkie! Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
>Software Engineer	| "I think so Brain, but if they called them Sad
>Partner Engineering	|  Meals kids wouldn't buy them!"
>Palm, Inc.
>
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-- 
-- Marshall
"The era of big government is over."
           Bill Clinton, State of the Union Address, January 23, 1996
Marshall Clow     MusicMatch   <mailto:mclow_at_[hidden]>