[Threads-devel] Conflicts beteen wxWidgets and boost::thread

From: Jeroen van der Wulp (J.v.d.Wulp_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-10-16 08:28:27

Hello,

I have been using the thread library in boost for a while now as a 
superior alternative to the threading functionality offered in wxWidgets 
itself. I'm closely following the recent activity on the development of 
the boost thread library. I'm importing changes as they are comitted and 
so far everything worked.

It turns out that on some platforms/configurations conflicts arise 
between wxWidgets and Boost thread. The problem is that wxWidgets 
defines a macro '_' and some methods definitions in 
boost/thread/pthread/mutex.hpp (lines 162, 173, 181, 193) are either 
called _, or they use a similar macro that does not get defined because 
the wxWidgets variant is defined. To get an impression:

boost/thread/pthread/mutex.hpp:162:1: error: pasting "L" and "&" does 
not give a valid preprocessing token
boost/thread/pthread/mutex.hpp:173:1: error: pasting "L" and "&" does 
not give a valid preprocessing token
boost/thread/pthread/mutex.hpp:181:1: error: pasting "L" and "&" does 
not give a valid preprocessing token
boost/thread/pthread/mutex.hpp:193:1: error: pasting "L" and "&" does 
not give a valid preprocessing token
boost/thread/pthread/mutex.hpp: In member function 'void 
boost::timed_mutex::lock()':
boost/thread/pthread/mutex.hpp:162: error: 'L' was not declared in this 
scope
boost/thread/pthread/mutex.hpp: In member function 'void 
boost::timed_mutex::unlock()':
boost/thread/pthread/mutex.hpp:173: error: 'L' was not declared in this 
scope
boost/thread/pthread/mutex.hpp: In member function 'bool 
boost::timed_mutex::try_lock()':
/usr/locboost/thread/pthread/mutex.hpp:181: error: 'L' was not declared 
in this scope
boost/thread/pthread/mutex.hpp: In member function 'bool 
boost::timed_mutex::timed_lock(const boost::system_time&)':
boost/thread/pthread/mutex.hpp:193: error: 'L' was not declared in this 
scope

The problem can be solved by reordering include statements in 
applications that use both Boost thread and wxWidgets. However I was 
wondering whether it would be possible to prevent this conflict 
altogether by renaming the methods in mutex.hpp to something else.

Thanks,

Jeroen van der Wulp