[Boost-users] Extended Thread object

From: Phil Endecott (spam_from_boost_users_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-10-25 12:30:54

Dear Experts,

The boost::thread documentation says:

Just as the lifetime of a file may be different from the lifetime of an 
iostream object which represents the file, the lifetime of a thread of 
execution may be different from the thread object which represents the 
thread of execution. In particular, after a call to join(), the thread 
of execution will no longer exist even though the thread object 
continues to exist until the end of its normal lifetime. The converse is 
also possible; if a thread object is destroyed without join() first 
having been called, the thread of execution continues until its initial 
function completes.

That's fine, but it's not what I'm looking for right now.  Can anyone 
point me to some code - perhaps adding a layer on top of boost::thread - 
that ties object lifetime to thread lifetime in some way?  (I'm 
imagining a dynamically-allocated object the deletes itself when the 
thread's initial function terminates, and that kills the thread if it 
(the object) is deleted first.)

The actual application is a sort of daemon; a main loop accepts tcp 
connections, and creates a new thread to handle each one.  It normally 
wants to "fire and forget" these threads, and I imagine it creating them 
with new() and then letting them dangle, until they eventually terminate 
and delete themselves.

My guess is that this could be done in just a few lines of code, but 
there are probably lots of race conditions to worry about.  Any 
suggestions anyone?

Cheers,

--Phil.