Re: Threads: Atomic Counter

From: William Kempf (sirwillard_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-08-31 09:28:39

--- In boost_at_[hidden], Kevlin Henney <kevlin_at_c...> wrote:
> In message <39AD8DD7.F163BB84_at_y...>, Dietmar Kuehl
> <dietmar_kuehl_at_y...> writes
> >Can you please outline where the other features are necessary?
> 
> Exchange can be used for thread-safe pointer swapping. This takes a
> couple of exchanges, but at each stage the system is in a consistent
> state. This can be used, for instance, to support assignment in the
> reference counted const_string class I have been idly toying with.

This brings up a different issue.  You can't portably cast pointers 
to scalar types and back.  So we may need two atomic types, one for 
an integral type and one for a pointer type.

Bill Kempf