[Boost-users] boost threads and Qt

From: Rainer Thaden (RThaden_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-03-26 14:08:57

Hi all,

I have a general question regarding threads and signals with boost and Qt.

I have a DLL communicating with an external device via Ethernet and a 
main program with a Qt-GUI for controlling the device.
The communciation runs in a different thread than the main program.
Qt provides signal/slots across threads, but as I understand it, I have 
to use the QThread library for it to work.
In the DLL I use boost signals and slots and the main program also 
receives boost signals and then emits Qt's signals to update the GUI, etc.
The reason to not use Qt in the DLL was to not force other programmers 
to use Qt if they want to write their own control application for the DLL.
However, I am getting in trouble with synchronization of the threads now 
and the question is:
is it possible / recommended / not recommended to mix Qt's thread API 
with the boost thread API?

Qt provides the possibility of "delayed" signals, that is, a posted 
signal is queued into the event loop of a thread and, thus, serialized. 
Is that easily possible with boost threads?

Any comments appreciated.

Best regards,

Rainer