Re: multi threading support (was: [boost] Hello boosters)

From: Branko Èibej (branko.cibej_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-06-01 05:45:15

Well,

Since I've been working on this for some time now, I decided to
put it in the vault (folder synchronization). It's a first stab
at defining an interface for basic synchronization primitives and
synchronized operations. The basic premise is that implicitly locking
an object (i.e., locking within methods) is a Bad Thing, because s)
in general it doesn't prevent races, and b) can lead to deadlocks (because
locking order is not defined explicitly).

What's in:

    - lock types (mutex, spinlock, rwlock)
    - atomic counter (for decrement-and-test)
    - sequencer and event count
    - condition (paired with mutex)
    - helper classes (lockable, watiable)
    - constructs for synchronization (sentinel, synchronized())

I've included an (almost-complete) implementation using POSIX threads
(a Win32 implementation is in the works), and two test cases, all tested
with (very) recent versions of g++.

This interface is of course far from complete, but I suppose it's
a good starting point for an answer to the first challenge :-)
Please take a look and comment.

    Regards,
        Brane

-- 
Branko Èibej                 <branko.cibej_at_[hidden]>
HERMES SoftLab, Litijska 51, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
voice: ([phone]     fax: [phone]