[Boost-users] Re: Extending the boost::thread class

From: Michael Glassford (glassfordm_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-10-13 12:26:04

"Ben Hutchings" <ben.hutchings_at_[hidden]> wrote in
message news:416D5B83.4090404_at_businesswebsoftware.com...
> arno.schaefer_at_[hidden] wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> I want to use the boost thread library as a base for my
>> multiplatform thread class. After I have studied the documentation
>> I recognize that there are not all things available at the moment
>> what I need, so I try to find out what is the best way to start my
>> implementation. What I need, is to implement the following
>> additional methods: suspend, resume, stop (or terminate),
>> set_priority, get_priority, get_state and I want to have the
>> possibility to create threads in a suspend mode.
> <snip>
>
> Why do you think you want suspend, resume and terminate?  There are
> very few safe uses for these operations, and programs that use them
> tend to suffer from data corruption and/or deadlocks.
>
> It would be fairly easy to add support for priority settings to
> Boost.Thread, but since priority values are only meaningful in the
> context of a scheduling policy and policies vary between operating
> systems it would be hard to provide a genuinely portable priority
> system.

For what it's worth, William Kempf began an implementation of thread
priorities and an exception-based thread cancellation scheme on the
thread_dev branch before he stopped working on Boost.Threads. If it's
completed enough (I haven't examined it closely enough yet to tell),
I hope to move it into the a Boost release after the upcoming 1.32.
That won't help you right now, however.

Mike