Re: [boost] [1.44] Beta progress?

Subject: Re: [boost] [1.44] Beta progress?
From: Anthony Williams (anthony.ajw_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-07-26 16:11:49

David Abrahams <dave_at_[hidden]> writes:

> At Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:01:40 +0100,
> Anthony Williams wrote:
>> 
>> > Is pthread_cancel() still a no go to be used in threads::interrupt
>> > implementation?
>> 
>> pthread_cancel is no-go because it has different semantics and cannot be 
>> translated into an exception.
>
> If you mean that its semantics are different because pthread_cancel is
> intended to be an unstoppable, non-ignorable command, but someone can
> always do a catch(...){}, I think that's silly (and I've made that
> clear to the Posix people—I'm not just picking on you).  Even in the
> `C' world there's nothing to stop me from either a) disabling
> cancellation or b) doing something in a cancellation handler that
> never terminates (including re-trying whatever operation was
> cancelled).

In principle, I agree. pthread_cancel should be usable as the basis for,
and interoperable with boost::thread::interrupt().

However, in practice it is not. I am not aware of any platforms where I
can cleanly catch a cancellation from pthread_cancel and translate it
into a boost::thread_interrupted exception. If I figure out a way, I'll
gladly use it.

Anthony
-- 
Author of C++ Concurrency in Action     http://www.stdthread.co.uk/book/
just::thread C++0x thread library             http://www.stdthread.co.uk
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