Re: PThreads

From: William Kempf (sirwillard_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-08-24 09:43:16

--- In boost_at_[hidden], "Milutin Jovanovic" <miki_at_o...> wrote:
> 
> Sorry for being off-topic, but the reason behind questions is our 
present
> thread discussion.
> 
> How standard are pthreads on UNIX? Is there a universal 
distribution, or are
> there separate platform distributions which are trying to be 
compatible
> amongst each other? Where is the best place to get pthreads for 
Linux and/or
> Windows?

How standard depends on how you want to define "standard" ;).  The 
pthreads standard allows for a lot of "optional functionality" 
and "implementation specific properties".  For instance, the ability 
to create a mutex as shareable is not required, and because of the 
interface that ability had to be removed from the Win32 
implementation despite the fact that Win32 allows for shared mutexes 
natively.

Beyond that, I'm not a Unix programmer, so don't have any direct 
experience.  However, I have heard that each Unix provider puts the 
posix routines at the bottom of their list, so even if they are 
present they're often not well implemented.  How true that is I don't 
know... I'm just sharing a complaint I've heard from some Unix 
programmers.

I'm not sure where to get pthreads for Linux (though I believe they 
should be a part of the standard installation?), but the pthreads for 
Win32 can be found at http://sources.redhat.com/pthreads-win32/.

Bill Kempf