Invalid conversion in pthread_create c++ [duplicate] - c++

Question

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pthread function from a class
(9 answers)
Closed 9 years ago.
I have a class named qwerty and a function called compute_ans inside it which takes a void pointer and returns a void pointer. Now when I try to compile, the following statement throws an error
pthread_create (thread_a, NULL, compute_ans, (void*) struct_left);
The definition of the function is void* compute_ans (void* struct_input)
The error is
cannot convert ‘qwerty::compute_ans’ from type ‘void* (qwerty::)(void*)’ to type ‘void* ()(void)’*

Answer 1

You cannot convert a pointer to a non-static member function to a pointer to function, C++ does not allow it. The reason is that member functions take an implicit this pointer as a parameter. Essentially this changes the signature of your function to be something like void* compute_ans(qwerty*, void*). In order to pass the function to pthread_create you need to make the member function static.
class qwerty
{
public:
// ... other member functions and variables ...
// thread start function
static void* compute_ans(void*);
};
If you cannot make this a static member function you will need to pass a pointer to a qwerty object to the thread start function. Looking at the code in your question you also need to pass additional data to the thread function. To do this you can use an additional data structure that contains all the necessary data and pass a pointer to that instead.
class qwerty; // forward declaration
// Structure passed to pthread_create and our helper function
struct thread_data
{
qwerty* qptr; // pointer to qwerty object
void* data; // pointer to other data. change void to your data type.
};
class qwerty
{
public:
// thread start function
static void* start_compute_ans(void* param)
{
// get a pointer to the thread data
thread_data* tdata = static_cast<thread_data*>(param);
// Call the real compute_ans
tdata->qptr->compute_ans(tdata->data);
// Delete the data (use an appropriate smart pointer if possible)
delete tdata;
return NULL;
}
// the real
void compute_ans(void*)
{
// do stuff here
}
};
// Create our thread startup data
thread_data* tdata = new thread_data();
tdata->qptr = qwerty_pointer;
tdata->data = struct_left;
// start the thread data
pthread_create (thread_a, NULL, &qwerty::start_compute_ans, tdata);

Answer 2

You can find the answer here.
You should use static functions to pass to pthread.
class qwerty
{
public:
void compute_ans(void)
{
std::cout << "Compute result!" << std::endl;
return
}
static void hello_helper(void *context)
{
return ((qwerty *)context)->compute_answer();
}
};
...
qwerty c;
pthread_t t;
pthread_create(&t, NULL, &qwerty::hello_helper, &c);