passing information to multiple thread - c++

Question

I am working on MultiThreaded TCP Server(c++) which will serve multiple client to stream Video.
I have decided to go with "thread per client" approach. There're no more than 100 simultaneous clients.
I am multiplexing the client using select system call and accepting the (accept) and then creating thread to stream video.
Is this Correct approach in this scenario?
I need to pass certain information like (socket id and handle to thread,threadID etc and other information to steam the video). How can i pass these information to all the thread, as these information are not common to all thread. I dont want to take array of HANDLE for the thread and thread id.

Answer 1

Please don'r "reinvent the wheel".
For example, the boost::asio library gives enormous help in creating a server such as you describe. There are lots of tutorials and examples - perhaps the most immediately useful to you would be http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_46_0/doc/html/boost_asio/example/echo/async_tcp_echo_server.cpp

Answer 2

usually starting a thread,
ether using standard approach of void function or functor class:
class StreamInfo
{
public:
int _id;
std::string _ip;
int _port;
int status;
StreamInfo(int id, string ip, int p):_id(id), _ip(ip), _port(p){};
};
void myThread(void* datastruct)
{
StreamInfo* info = static_cast<StreamInfo*>(datastruct);
..
..
//busy wait..
while(...)
{
// check for some new info
if(info->status)....
}
}
main(..)
{
multimap<int, StreamInfo*> mmap;
SOCK s=null;
StramInfo* i=null;
while(s = accept(sock))
{
i=new StreamInfo(12, "localhost", 5000);
id = createThread(...myThread, i);
....
mmap.append(pair<..,..>(id, i);
};
};
//...some other thread
/// change StreamInfo status for thread 12
mmap.last(12).status = 134;
//... then thread 12 will automatically recon this change in busy wait.
its just one approach, you could use observer pattern as well.
But this would require more work.
I imagine streaming is quite bandwidth, cpu and memory consuming.
So switching between threads might be not efficient enough though.
Maybe look at the asynchronous approach.
Boost::ASIO is pretty decent for that purpose and works on all platforms.

Answer 3

"Thread per client" is not scalable approach, especially for video streaming server (usually high-performance required). Have a look at Boost.Asio library, especially at example "An HTTP server using a single io_service and a thread pool calling io_service::run()." (just ignore HTTP-specific stuff). Using Boost.Asio you'll receive high-performance scalable multithreaded server w/o headache.