[boost] [shmem] Uploaded to Vault+documentation questions+misc

From: ION_G_M (ION_G_M_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-03-09 03:03:04

Hi James and all shmem users,

 Sorry for uploading to boost files but I had some problems with file 
size, so I uploaded to boost files instead. In boost vault you will 
fine a new folder (Shmem) with 3 new files: 

Shmem.2005-03-06.tar.bz2 //library
Shmem.2005-03-06-doc-1.tar.bz2 //doc1
Shmem.2005-03-06-doc-2.tar.bz2 //doc2

 Write now I am writing documentation with a text editor and it's just 
a pain. For this version, I've discovered the CDATA usage so I don't 
have to manually escape XML characters (<, >, &). I will have a look at 
Quickbook. Is there any way to "insert" a cpp file directly on the code 
using BoostBook/QuickBook? That would help me a lot to mantain example 
code without errors.

 I've also seen in unordered associative containers documentation that 
colored code is used and I'm very interested in that, but I don't know 
if that is provided by BoostBook or was created with an external tool.

 Regarding new version, there are some name changes, so please, forgive 
me. I don't plan any further name changes except after a boost review.

 I've tested it in Windows XP using visual 7.1 mainly and Linux 2.6 
kernel (Suse 9.2) using gcc 3.4.1. But it's possible to be errors in 
some linux tests.

 For this version I don't have any atomic swap/inc/test function and I 
don't plan to have it, because library has grown so much that I prefer 
to polish a bit this. I agree that those functions would be very useful 
to implement lock-free allocators and structures.

 If win32 shared_mutex/shared_condition seem very rudimentary 
test/yield functions but I've not found any pthread-like process shared 
mutex/condition implementation in any place (the latest time I checked, 
cygwin, pthread-win32, Windows Unix Services, didn't support that) so I 
had to make this hack to go on.

 When I propose a review process, surely synchronization objects should 
be included/adapted to boost threads, but currently boost::thread's 
elements don't allow single threaded builds, so I can't use 
boost::xtime and scoped_locks in shmem when synchronizing two single 
threaded processes. That's why I've copied those classes in my library 
changing their name.

 One last thing: shared memory creation/destruction is not very 
portable, because I can't find a common implementation that suits 
win32/posix shared memory model (I mean shm_unlink behaviour). I've not 
found any valid implementation except using System V shared memory to 
emulate Win32 shared memory, but I want to use posix functions if 
available. Has anyone solved this before?

 Well, thank you for your comments and feel free to write if any 
problem is found. Regards,

Ion