Re: boost::condition question

From: svanechel (svanechel_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-02-25 05:12:32

[...]

> First, note that this scheme is very prone to starvation problems.  
> If an operation "type" acquires the "lock" and there are several 
> threads that will also acquire this same "type" in a loop, it may 
> very well be that the "lock" is never relinquished for the 
> other "types" to acquire it.  RW locks are a little tricky to 
> implement because of this issue.
> 

Can you elaborate a bit more on that one, help me to understand. Is 
there any way out of this problem? How can I prevent it?

[...]
> 
> You didn't use boost::condition incorrectly, you used the 
> scoped_lock<> incorrectly.  Fixing this, though, still leaves you 
> with a questionable synchronization scheme that's prone to 
starvation.
> 

Odly enough I alway use scoped_lock they way it is intended to be 
used. I got a confused when reading through the documentation of 
boost::condition and how condition::wait affects the lock. Thanks to 
your comments I got it working and it behaves as I expect it would. I 
would surely appreciate if you (or someone else) could futher clarify 
the starvation problem.

Sven