[Boost-users] Re: Q: Stopping threads (Win32) or... the mysterious case of the thread with split personality

From: Jeffrey Holle (jeff.holle_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-12-05 14:00:34

First, a thread should kill itself.
Second, you should use legit inter-thread communication.
The request to commit suicide should be one of the things the thread 
pends on.
Don't know boost.threads, but thats the general correct way to write a 
multi-threaded application.

Dan Dimerman wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I would like to ask the group if you know of an efficient and clean way to 
> stop a thread.
> What I've been using till now was a while loop in the function operator()() 
> given to the boost::thread when created, whose condition was a boolean data 
> member. This boolean was the means to stop the thread, such that when it was 
> turned off, the child thread would exit the while loop and join the main 
> thread.
> I am seeing now that this data member is being held twice (one copy for the 
> main thread and one copy for the child thread) and there's no synch between 
> the two copies; so when the main thread turns it off / false, the child 
> thread goes on (since its copy is still on / true) and hell breaks loose.
> 
> I am using VC7 in debug mode, so I started looking for some kind of 
> flag/optimization I might be inadvertently using that makes data members 
> into registers (thus explaining the copies), but couldn't find anything of 
> the sort.
> 
> Any help will be greatly appreciated...
> 
> Dan
> 
> 
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