Re: [boost] [thread] On shared_mutex

Subject: Re: [boost] [thread] On shared_mutex
From: Vicente Botet (vicente.botet_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-11-28 17:44:21

Hi,

glad to see that you are working on this. 

Howard Hinnant-3 wrote:
> 
> Three years ago I wrote N2406 "Mutex, Lock, Condition Variable Rationale"
> (http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n2406.html) for
> the C++ committee in an attempt to explain the combined proposed
> std::mutex/std::unique_lock package and how it fit together with the
> tr2-targeted shared_mutex/shared_lock package.  This paper also proposed
> an upgrade_mutex and upgrade_lock.
> 
> Since that time, the std-proposed stuff has been accepted with some name
> changes, and a reworking of the timed-locking interface.  Additionally
> Anthony Williams has implemented much of the shared-locking functionality
> in boost (and done a very nice job with it).
> 
> That being said, I disagree with some fairly major design changes between
> N2406 and what is now in the boost library.  Four of the major changes
> are:
> 
> 1.  upgrade_mutex has been dropped.
> 2.  Some, but not all of the functionality in upgrade_mutex has been moved
> into shared_mutex.
> 3.  Some of the upgrade_mutex functionality is missing completely.  The
> missing functionality is summarized in the "Ownership Modes" charts in the
> form of red arrows.
> 4.  boost allows implicit conversions between the lock types.  N2406 made
> these conversions explicit.  Rationale:  changing the ownership mode of a
> mutex is something that should be well documented in the code.
> 
> 

Some weeks ago I proposed to Anthony and Ion to unify the synchronization
parts of Boost.Thread and Boost.Interprocess and try to follow C++0x as
close as possible, using Boost.Move, Boost.System and Boost.Chrono (if
accepted). 

I had a positive answer from Ion. Ion was interested in preserving backward
compatibility and in maintaining his Interprocess library header only, so I
tried to make Boost.System and Boost.Chrono configurable either as a header
only library or a dynamic library. Unfortunately Boost.Move has not been
accepted yet neither. We need to see how backward compatibility can be
preserved as there are a lot of differences between both interfaces.

I guess you know already that Boost.Interprocess interface is quite close to
N2406 and also to your design.

> 
> I have an updated implementation of <shared_mutex> (under the boost
> license) here:
> 
> <snip>
> 

Thanks for sharing all these material with us.

Best,
Vicente
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