Re: Why no thread join with timeout?

From: bill_kempf (williamkempf_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-01-11 15:05:46

--- In boost_at_y..., "developir" <developir_at_y...> wrote:
> Why doesn't Boost have a funtion "thread::join(timeout_value)" as 
most 
> popular commercial thread libraries do?  It is not conceptually 
> different than having a timeout for mutex acquisition which Boost 
> already supports.

I'm not sure I'd agree that "most popular commercial thread libraries 
do".  POSIX doesn't, for instance.

The biggest reason why it doesn't is because, generally, if you need 
this kind of functionality what you really need is a "wait for the 
thread to exit" type of mechanism which can be rolled with a mutex 
and a condition.  That's not the purpose of a "join".

However, the current design is proving not too popular so I'll 
revisit this whole thing at some point.

Bill Kempf