[boost] surprising accessability of free locking functions for mutex

From: Roland Schwarz (roland.schwarz_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-11-04 07:58:43

Having followed the discussion about the availability of direct locking 
of mutexes,
I am somewhat surprised that there are free functions available for this 
purpose.

Is this by intent? Is using them simply bad practice?

I.e.:

boost::mutex m1;
boost::detail::thread::lock_ops<boost::mutex>::lock(&m1);

is e legal statement. (And indeed is locking the mutex.)

Yes I've seen the "detail". Does this imply: Anything that is detail 
definitely should
not go into user programs?

I am asking this not for pure 'academic' reasons. What I am trying to do 
is to find
out whether it is possible to write a small wrapper over the existing 
classes to support
a kind of cancellability for my threads, until the "real thing" will be 
available.

Thank you.

Roland