Re: [boost] [thread] API for getting/setting thread name in Boost?

Subject: Re: [boost] [thread] API for getting/setting thread name in Boost?
From: Bob Summerwill (bob_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-05-09 19:50:17

My language wasn't quite precise enough!

I don't believe there is a single implementation which will work on all
POSIX-compliant systems, but it looks like we're close enough to de-facto
standardization that we can get something which will work on all the major
platforms.

It's essentially looking at:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2369738/can-i-set-the-name-of-a-thread-in-pthreads-linux/7989973#7989973

Which gives you code something like this:

https://github.com/ethereum/libweb3core/blob/develop/libdevcore/Log.cpp#L176

And the Windows equivalent:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/905876/how-to-set-name-to-a-win32-thread

Thanks, Vincente for setting up the Github issue tracker, and for your
reply.    I will log an issue there now.

Cheers,
Bob

On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 5:34 AM, Vicente J. Botet Escriba <
vicente.botet_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Le 06/05/2016 à 21:05, Bob Summerwill a écrit :
>
>> My apologies for the cut-and-paste here.   I had "digest enabled".
>>
>> Vicente >> I remember this thread
>> Vicente >> Unfortunately not. Nobody provided a patch.
>>
>>
>> OK - well maybe I need to put that on my backlog.    It just one code-path
>> for Windows and another for POSIX.   Just a few lines of code for each.
>>
> I don't know of a portable POSIX solution. Do you?
>
>>
>> Vicente >> You can add a Feature request on Trac system or create an issue
>> on
>> Vicente >> Github, but I don't believe I will work on that if there is no
>> portable
>> Vicente >> solution.
>>
>> So I couldn't find an active issue tracker on the repos in Github.
>>
> Oh, I believed there were one. I will request to the administrators to see
> what can be done.
>
>> I
>> tried to create a Trac issue, but it rejected my ticket for having
>> external
>> links (yep, there are a lot).
>>
> Yes Trac don't support links :(.
>
>> Maybe it will be nicer to me if I had a SVN
>> account.   I do not.
>>
> You don't need an svn account.
>
>> Is trac the primary issue-tracker?
>>
>> Yes. We want to move to github however.
>
> Vicente
>
>
>> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 10:25 AM, Bob Summerwill <bob_at_[hidden]>
>> wrote:
>>
>> I've also been working with an external developer which is getting
>>> Ethereum C++ working on Alpine Linux, as a statically linked executable
>>> using musl, rather than glibc.
>>>
>>> One rather confusing element was related to setting and getting thread
>>> names, which is the process of working through this issue, I find appears
>>> not to have made its way into either Boost or the C++11 standard library,
>>> though it must be a very common cross-platform use-case.
>>>
>>> https://github.com/ethereum/libweb3core/pull/73
>>> https://github.com/ethereum/libweb3core/pull/73/files
>>>
>>> I've just added this comment-block, while fixing the issue:
>>>
>>> /// Set the current thread's log name.
>>> ///
>>> /// It appears that there is not currently any cross-platform way of
>>> setting
>>> /// thread names either in Boost or in the C++11 runtime libraries.
>>>  What is
>>> /// more, the API for 'pthread_setname_np' is not even consistent across
>>> /// platforms which implement it.
>>> ///
>>> /// A proposal to add such functionality on the Boost mailing list, which
>>> /// I assume never happened, but which I should follow-up and ask about.
>>> ///
>>> http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/Adding-an-option-to-set-the-name-of-a-boost-thread-td4638283.html
>>> ///
>>> /// man page for 'pthread_setname_np', including this crucial snippet of
>>> /// information ... "These functions are nonstandard GNU extensions."
>>> /// http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/pthread_setname_np.3.html
>>> ///
>>> /// Stack Overflow "Can I set the name of a thread in pthreads / linux?"
>>> /// which includes useful information on the minor API differences
>>> between
>>> /// Linux, BSD and OS X.
>>> ///
>>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2369738/can-i-set-the-name-of-a-thread-in-pthreads-linux/7989973#7989973
>>> ///
>>> /// musl mailng list posting "pthread set name on MIPs" which includes
>>> the
>>> /// information that musl doesn't currently implement
>>> 'pthread_setname_np'
>>> /// https://marc.info/?l=musl&m=146171729013062&w=1
>>> void setThreadName(std::string const& _n);
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Would I be right in assuming that this never happened?
>>>
>>>
>>> http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/Adding-an-option-to-set-the-name-of-a-boost-thread-td4638283.html
>>>
>>>
>>> If not, where can I log an issue to request that we revisit that?    From
>>> what I can see, everybody is likely just cut-and-pasting much the same
>>> code
>>> for this functionality.
>>>
>>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10121560/stdthread-naming-your-thread
>>>
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Bob Summerwill
>>> --
>>> bob_at_[hidden]
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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-- 
bob_at_[hidden]