[boost] Re: Re: Future of threads (III)

From: Andreas Huber (ah2003_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-02-14 04:40:23

Sean Kelly wrote:
[snip]
>
> The user could delete the object passed to boost::thread with the
> existing design and there would be no provision for calling join.  If
> this is
> enough of a concern, make the thread_base destructor a pure virtual
> function and document the need to call join.

Yes, but the user still has to know/remember that (s)he has to call join()
in the derived class destructor and start() in the constructor. I think the
boost::thread design is much less error-prone here. Plus, with the
boost::thread design it is easy to avoid lifetime issues altogether:

// untested code
class MyActiveObject
{
  public:
    void Run()
    {
      // ...
    }
};

// ...

boost::thread myThread( boost::function< void () >(
  boost::shared_ptr< MyActiveObject >( new MyActiveObject() ),
  &MyActiveObject::Run ) );

This will work even if you forget to call join() before destructing the
thread object...

Regards,

Andreas