[boost] [Serialization] Thread-safety of trunk code

From: Sohail Somani (sohail_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-04-21 17:01:03

Hey Robert,

I know I promised I'd look into it a long time ago, and I finally got 
around to it.

It appears you have addressed the thread-safety issue by ensuring that 
all the mutable singleton objects get created before main. Is this correct?

If so, then the problem is shifted to the implementation-specifics. I 
see two things that need to be determined for a given compiler/OS:

1) If you dynamically load a dll/shared object (eg, dlopen/LoadLibrary) 
does your loader guarantee that the global C++ constructors will be 
called? I recall some Unices that I've had the misfortune of coming 
across where this is not the case.

2) Does the singleton<T> + static T reference hack work as expected on 
the compiler?

For users, perhaps it would be most helpful to have tests that test the 
above. I think there are tests that test the second case indirectly. If 
memory serves, BBv2 is a hurdle to getting the first in a test-case. 
Perhaps one of the BBv2 gurus can help you there ;-)

Other than that, it looks good to me. Good job rewriting the dangerous 
parts rather than patching in the thread-safety.

This is based on my reading and not actually testing the thread-safety 
so your mileage may vary ;-)

-- 
Sohail Somani
http://uint32t.blogspot.com