Thread to wait infinitely in a loop until a flag state change, then call function.
pseudo code illustration:
while (true)
{
while (!flag)
{
sleep(1);
}
clean_upfunction();
}
Currently:
Using the multithreaded versions of the C run-time libraries only
No:
MFC
Question:
Is there a more efficient way of implementing the above
A waitForStateChange() - similar to above - in the threading library
For Windows (which you have this tagged for), you want to look at WaitForSingleObject. Use a Windows Event (with CreateEvent), then wait on it; the other thread should call SetEvent. All native Windows, no MFC or anything else required.
If you're not on Windows, and are instead on a POSIXish box, pthread_cond_wait is the best match:
/* signaler */
pthread_mutex_lock(mutex);
flag = true;
pthread_cond_signal(cond);
pthread_mutex_unlock(mutex);
/* waiter */
pthread_mutex_lock(mutex);
do {
pthread_cond_wait(cond, mutex);
} while (!flag);
pthread_mutex_unlock(mutex);
The classic self-pipe trick is easier and cooler though :) Works on systems without pthreads too.
/* setup */
int pipefd[2];
if (pipe(pipefd) < 0) {
perror("pipe failed");
exit(-1);
}
/* signaler */
char byte = 0;
write(pipefd[0], &byte, 1); // omitting error handling for brevity
/* waiter */
char byte;
read(pipefd[1], &byte, 1); // omitting error handling for brevity
The waiter will block on the read (you don't set O_NONBLOCK) until interrupted (which is why you should have error handling) or the signaler writes a byte.
Take a look at condition_variable in Boost.Thread.
http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_37_0/doc/html/thread/synchronization.html#thread.synchronization.condvar_ref
It is portable, easier to use than the platform-specific options. Moreover, IIUC, the upcoming C++0x std::condition_variable was modeled after it.
Related
I have some code that looks like this and I'm unsure how to handle the part which will never get executed since a part of this code runs in infinite loop while waiting for connections and when I terminate the program, it exits from there only.
main(){
// do some stuff....
while(1) {
int newFD =
accept(sockFD, (struct sockaddr *)&client_addr, &client_addr_size);
if(newFD == -1) {
std::cerr << "Error while Accepting on socket" << std::endl;
continue;
}
if(!fork()) {
close(sockFD); // close child's sockfd - not needed here
// lalala do stuff send message here
close(newFD); // finally close its newFD - message sent, no use
return 0;
}
close(newFD); // close parent's newFD - no use here
}
// now execution never reaches here
close(sockFD); // so how to handle this?
freeaddrinfo(res); // and this?
return 0;
}
You can, and probably should add a exit handler if your code is to be used by other people or you yourself just want it cleaner. In your exit handler you can toggle a flag that makes the while() loop terminate. The following code will work 100% fine for this use case and is reliable and cross platform, but if you want to do more complicated things you should use proper thread safe OS specific functions or something like Boost or C++11
First declare two global variables, make them volatile so the compiler will always force us to read or write its actually memory value. If you we do not declare it volatile then it is possible the compiler can put its value in a register which will make this not work. With volatile set it will read the memory location on every loop and work correctly, even with multiple threads.
volatile bool bRunning=true;
volatile bool bFinished=false;
and instead of your while(1) {} loop, change it to this
while(bRunning)
{
dostuff
}
bFinished=true;
In your exit handler simply set bRunning=false;
void ExitHandler()
{
bRunning=false;
while(bFinished==false) { Sleep(1); }
}
You didn't specify an operating system but it looks like you are Linux based, to set a handler on Linux you need this.
void ExitHandler(int s)
{
bRunning=false;
}
int main()
{
struct sigaction sigIntHandler;
sigIntHandler.sa_handler = ExitHandler;
sigemptyset(&sigIntHandler.sa_mask);
sigIntHandler.sa_flags = 0;
sigaction(SIGINT, &sigIntHandler, NULL);
while(bRunning)
{
dostuff
}
...error_handling...
}
And on Windows when you are a console app its the following.
BOOL WINAPI ConsoleHandler(DWORD CEvent)
{
switch (CEvent)
{
case CTRL_C_EVENT:
case CTRL_BREAK_EVENT:
case CTRL_CLOSE_EVENT:
case CTRL_LOGOFF_EVENT:
case CTRL_SHUTDOWN_EVENT:
bRunning = false;
while (bFinished == false) Sleep(1);
break;
}
return TRUE;
}
int main()
{
SetConsoleCtrlHandler(ConsoleHandler, TRUE);
while(bRunning()
{
dostuff
}
...error_handling...
}
Notice the need to test and wait for bFinished here. If you don't do this on Windows your app may not have enough time to shutdown as the exit handler is called by a separate OS specific thread. On Linux this is not necessary and you need to exit from your handler for your main thread to continue.
Another thing to note is by default Windows only gives you ~5 seconds to shut down before it terminates you. This is unfortunate in many cases and if more time is needed you will need to change the registry setting (bad idea) or implement a service which has better hooks into such things. For your simple case it will be fine.
For these things, the OS will take care of properly releasing the resources on shutdown. However, more generally, you still need to make sure that allocated resources don't pile up during program execution, even if they are reclaimed by the OS automatically, because such a resource leak will still influence behaviour and performance of your program.
Now, concerning the resources at hand, there's no reason not to treat them like all resources in C++. The accepted rule is to bind them to an object that will release them in their destructor, see also the RAII idiom. That way, even if at some later stage someone added a break statement the code would still behave correctly.
BTW: The more serious problem I see here is the lack of proper error handling in general.
let's pretend there are no libraries that provide semaphores for C++. I wrote this:
#include <vector>
#include <Windows.h>
class Semaphore {
HANDLE mutexS; // provides mutex in semaphore rutines
std::vector<HANDLE> queue; // provides FIFO queue for blocked threads
int value; // semaphore's value
public:
Semaphore(int init=1);
~Semaphore();
void wait();
void signal();
};
Semaphore::Semaphore(int init) {
value = init;
queue = std::vector<HANDLE>();
mutexS = CreateMutex(0,0,0);
}
Semaphore::~Semaphore() {
CloseHandle(mutexS);
}
void Semaphore::signal() {
WaitForSingleObject(mutexS, INFINITE);
if (++value <= 0) {
HANDLE someOldThread = queue.front();
ResumeThread(someOldThread);
queue.erase(queue.begin());
CloseHandle(someOldThread);
}
ReleaseMutex(mutexS);
}
I would like to know why this implementation of wait() doesn't work:
void Semaphore::wait() {
WaitForSingleObject(mutexS, INFINITE);
if (--value < 0) {
HANDLE thisThread = GetCurrentThread();
queue.push_back(thisThread);
ReleaseMutex(mutexS);
SuspendThread(thisThread );
}
else
ReleaseMutex(mutexS);
}
And this one works:
void Semaphore::wait() {
WaitForSingleObject(mutexS, INFINITE);
if (--value < 0) {
HANDLE thisThread = GetCurrentThread();
HANDLE alsoThisThread;
DuplicateHandle(GetCurrentProcess(), thisThread, GetCurrentProcess(), &alsoThisThread, 0, 0, DUPLICATE_SAME_ACCESS);
queue.push_back(alsoThisThread);
ReleaseMutex(mutexS);
SuspendThread(alsoThisThread);
}
else
ReleaseMutex(mutexS);
}
What exactly happens in each case? I've been banging my head over it for a lot of time now. The first implementation of wait, which doesn't work, makes my program block (well, it probably blocks some thread forever). The 2nd implementation works like a charm. What gives ? Why do I need to duplicate thread handles and block the duplicate ?
MSDN helps a lot here ;)
GetCurrentThread returns a pseudo-handle which is a constant for "the current thread":
A pseudo handle is a special constant that is interpreted as the current thread handle.
So when you push it in the queue, you are always pushing a constant that says "the current thread", which is obviously not what you want.
To get a real handle, you have to use DuplicateHandle
If hSourceHandle is a pseudo handle returned by GetCurrentProcess or GetCurrentThread, DuplicateHandle converts it to a real handle to a process or thread, respectively.
A final note: I suppose you are implementing this as a "test" right? Because there are several potential problems.. A very good learning exercise would be to dig them out. But you should not use this in production code.
Out of curiosity: if you want to experiment a little more, the "canonical" way of implementing semaphore with mutexes is to use two mutexes: see here
MSDN documentation for GetCurrentThread has the answer (accents are mine):
The return value is a pseudo handle for the current thread.
A pseudo handle is a special constant that is interpreted as the current thread handle. The calling thread can use this handle to specify itself whenever a thread handle is required.
...
The function cannot be used by one thread to create a handle that can be used by other threads to refer to the first thread. The handle is always interpreted as referring to the thread that is using it. A thread can create a "real" handle to itself that can be used by other threads, or inherited by other processes, by specifying the pseudo handle as the source handle in a call to the DuplicateHandle function.
I'm using the function poll() (I think it might be part of POSIX?) C function in my C++ class in order to get an event when a file changes. This seems to work just fine - but now I also want to be able to cause the function to exit immediately when I need to close the thread.
I researched this and came up with a couple of ideas that I tried - like trying to send a signal, but I couldn't figure out how to get this to work.
In the code below (which isn't 100% complete, but should have enough to illustrate the problem), I have a C++ class that starts a thread from the constructor and wants to clean up that thread in the destructor. The thread calls poll() which returns when the file changes, and then it informs the delegate object. The monitoring thread loops until the FileMonitor object indicates it can quit (using a method that returns a bool).
In the destructor, what I would like to do is flip the bool, then do something that causes poll() to exit immediately, and then call *pthread_join()*. So, any ideas on how I can make poll() exit immediately?
This code is targeted towards Linux (specifically debian), but I'm also working on it on a Mac. Ideally it the poll() API should work basically the same.
void * manage_fm(void *arg)
{
FileMonitor * theFileMonitor = (FileMonitor*)arg;
FileMonitorDelegate * delegate;
unsigned char c;
int fd = open(theFileMonitor->filepath2monitor(), O_RDWR);
int count;
ioctl(fd, FIONREAD, &count);
for (int i=0;i<count;++i) {
read(fd, &c, 1);
}
struct pollfd poller;
poller.fd = fd;
poller.events = POLLPRI;
while (theFileMonitor->continue_managing_thread()) {
delegate = theFileMonitor->delegate;
if (poll(&poller, 1, -1) > 0) {
(void) read(fd, &c, 1);
if (delegate) {
delegate->fileChanged();
}
}
}
}
FileMonitor::FileMonitor( )
{
pthread_mutex_init(&mon_mutex, NULL);
manage_thread = true;
pthread_mutex_lock (&mon_mutex);
pthread_create(&thread_id, NULL, manage_fm, this);
pthread_mutex_unlock(&pin_mutex);
}
FileMonitor::~FileMonitor()
{
manage_thread = false;
// I would like to do something here to force the "poll" function to return immediately.
pthread_join(thread_id, NULL);
}
bool FileMonitor::continue_managing_thread()
{
return manage_thread;
}
const char * FileMonitor::filepath2monitor()
{
return "/some/example/file";
}
Add a pipe to your file monitor class and switch your poll to take both your original file descriptor and the pipe's read descriptor to poll on. When you want to wake up your file monitor class for it to check for exit, send a byte through the pipe's write descriptor, that will wake up your thread.
If you have a large number of these file monitors, there's the possibility you could hit the maximum number of file descriptors for a process (See Check the open FD limit for a given process in Linux for details, on my system it's 1024 soft, 4096 hard). You could have multiple monitor classes share a single pipe if you don't mind them all waking up at once to check their exit indicator.
You should use a pthread condition variable inside (and just before) the poll-ing loop, and have the other thread calling pthread_cond_signal
You might consider the pipe(7) to self trick (e.g. have one thread write(2) a byte -perhaps just before pthread_cond_signal- to a pipe poll(2)-ed by another thread who would read(2) the same pipe). See also signal-safety(7) and calling Qt functions from Unix signal handlers. Both could inspire you.
With that pipe-to-self trick, assuming you do poll for reading that pipe, the poll will return. Of course some other thread would have done a write on the same pipe before.
See also Philippe Chaintreuil's answer, he suggests a similar idea.
recently I set out to port ucos-ii to Ubuntu PC.
As we know, it's not possible to simulate the "process" in the ucos-ii by simply adding a flag in "while" loop in the pthread's call-back function to perform pause and resume(like the solution below). Because the "process" in ucos-ii can be paused or resumed at any time!
How to sleep or pause a PThread in c on Linux
I have found one solution on the web-site below, but it can't be built because it's out of date. It uses the process in Linux to simulate the task(acts like the process in our Linux) in ucos-ii.
http://www2.hs-esslingen.de/~zimmerma/software/index_uk.html
If pthread can act like the process which can be paused and resumed at any time, please tell me some related functions, I can figure it out myself. If it can't, I think I should focus on the older solution. Thanks a lot.
The Modula-3 garbage collector needs to suspend pthreads at an arbitrary time, not just when they are waiting on a condition variable or mutex. It does it by registering a (Unix) signal handler that suspends the thread and then using pthread_kill to send a signal to the target thread. I think it works (it has been reliable for others but I'm debugging an issue with it right now...) It's a bit kludgy, though....
Google for ThreadPThread.m3 and look at the routines "StopWorld" and "StartWorld". Handler itself is in ThreadPThreadC.c.
If stopping at specific points with a condition variable is insufficient, then you can't do this with pthreads. The pthread interface does not include suspend/resume functionality.
See, for example, answer E.4 here:
The POSIX standard provides no mechanism by which a thread A can suspend the execution of another thread B, without cooperation from B. The only way to implement a suspend/restart mechanism is to have B check periodically some global variable for a suspend request and then suspend itself on a condition variable, which another thread can signal later to restart B.
That FAQ answer goes on to describe a couple of non-standard ways of doing it, one in Solaris and one in LinuxThreads (which is now obsolete; do not confuse it with current threading on Linux); neither of those apply to your situation.
On Linux you can probably setup custom signal handler (eg. using signal()) that will contain wait for another signal (eg. using sigsuspend()). You then send the signals using pthread_kill() or tgkill(). It is important to use so-called "realtime signals" for this, because normal signals like SIGUSR1 and SIGUSR2 don't get queued, which means that they can get lost under high load conditions. You send a signal several times, but it gets received only once, because before while signal handler is running, new signals of the same kind are ignored. So if you have concurent threads doing PAUSE/RESUME , you can loose RESUME event and cause deadlock. On the other hand, the pending realtime signals (like SIGRTMIN+1 and SIGRTMIN+2) are not deduplicated, so there can be several same rt signals in queue at the same time.
DISCLAIMER: I had not tried this yet. But in theory it should work.
Also see man 7 signal-safety. There is a list of calls that you can safely call in signal handlers. Fortunately sigsuspend() seems to be one of them.
UPDATE: I have working code right here:
//Filename: pthread_pause.c
//Author: Tomas 'Harvie' Mudrunka 2021
//Build: CFLAGS=-lpthread make pthread_pause; ./pthread_pause
//Test: valgrind --tool=helgrind ./pthread_pause
//I've wrote this code as excercise to solve following stack overflow question:
// https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9397068/how-to-pause-a-pthread-any-time-i-want/68119116#68119116
#define _GNU_SOURCE //pthread_yield() needs this
#include <signal.h>
#include <pthread.h>
//#include <pthread_extra.h>
#include <semaphore.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <assert.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <sys/resource.h>
#include <time.h>
#define PTHREAD_XSIG_STOP (SIGRTMIN+0)
#define PTHREAD_XSIG_CONT (SIGRTMIN+1)
#define PTHREAD_XSIGRTMIN (SIGRTMIN+2) //First unused RT signal
pthread_t main_thread;
sem_t pthread_pause_sem;
pthread_once_t pthread_pause_once_ctrl = PTHREAD_ONCE_INIT;
void pthread_pause_once(void) {
sem_init(&pthread_pause_sem, 0, 1);
}
#define pthread_pause_init() (pthread_once(&pthread_pause_once_ctrl, &pthread_pause_once))
#define NSEC_PER_SEC (1000*1000*1000)
// timespec_normalise() from https://github.com/solemnwarning/timespec/
struct timespec timespec_normalise(struct timespec ts)
{
while(ts.tv_nsec >= NSEC_PER_SEC) {
++(ts.tv_sec); ts.tv_nsec -= NSEC_PER_SEC;
}
while(ts.tv_nsec <= -NSEC_PER_SEC) {
--(ts.tv_sec); ts.tv_nsec += NSEC_PER_SEC;
}
if(ts.tv_nsec < 0) { // Negative nanoseconds isn't valid according to POSIX.
--(ts.tv_sec); ts.tv_nsec = (NSEC_PER_SEC + ts.tv_nsec);
}
return ts;
}
void pthread_nanosleep(struct timespec t) {
//Sleep calls on Linux get interrupted by signals, causing premature wake
//Pthread (un)pause is built using signals
//Therefore we need self-restarting sleep implementation
//IO timeouts are restarted by SA_RESTART, but sleeps do need explicit restart
//We also need to sleep using absolute time, because relative time is paused
//You should use this in any thread that gets (un)paused
struct timespec wake;
clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC, &wake);
t = timespec_normalise(t);
wake.tv_sec += t.tv_sec;
wake.tv_nsec += t.tv_nsec;
wake = timespec_normalise(wake);
while(clock_nanosleep(CLOCK_MONOTONIC, TIMER_ABSTIME, &wake, NULL)) if(errno!=EINTR) break;
return;
}
void pthread_nsleep(time_t s, long ns) {
struct timespec t;
t.tv_sec = s;
t.tv_nsec = ns;
pthread_nanosleep(t);
}
void pthread_sleep(time_t s) {
pthread_nsleep(s, 0);
}
void pthread_pause_yield() {
//Call this to give other threads chance to run
//Wait until last (un)pause action gets finished
sem_wait(&pthread_pause_sem);
sem_post(&pthread_pause_sem);
//usleep(0);
//nanosleep(&((const struct timespec){.tv_sec=0,.tv_nsec=1}), NULL);
//pthread_nsleep(0,1); //pthread_yield() is not enough, so we use sleep
pthread_yield();
}
void pthread_pause_handler(int signal) {
//Do nothing when there are more signals pending (to cleanup the queue)
//This is no longer needed, since we use semaphore to limit pending signals
/*
sigset_t pending;
sigpending(&pending);
if(sigismember(&pending, PTHREAD_XSIG_STOP)) return;
if(sigismember(&pending, PTHREAD_XSIG_CONT)) return;
*/
//Post semaphore to confirm that signal is handled
sem_post(&pthread_pause_sem);
//Suspend if needed
if(signal == PTHREAD_XSIG_STOP) {
sigset_t sigset;
sigfillset(&sigset);
sigdelset(&sigset, PTHREAD_XSIG_STOP);
sigdelset(&sigset, PTHREAD_XSIG_CONT);
sigsuspend(&sigset); //Wait for next signal
} else return;
}
void pthread_pause_enable() {
//Having signal queue too deep might not be necessary
//It can be limited using RLIMIT_SIGPENDING
//You can get runtime SigQ stats using following command:
//grep -i sig /proc/$(pgrep binary)/status
//This is no longer needed, since we use semaphores
//struct rlimit sigq = {.rlim_cur = 32, .rlim_max=32};
//setrlimit(RLIMIT_SIGPENDING, &sigq);
pthread_pause_init();
//Prepare sigset
sigset_t sigset;
sigemptyset(&sigset);
sigaddset(&sigset, PTHREAD_XSIG_STOP);
sigaddset(&sigset, PTHREAD_XSIG_CONT);
//Register signal handlers
//signal(PTHREAD_XSIG_STOP, pthread_pause_handler);
//signal(PTHREAD_XSIG_CONT, pthread_pause_handler);
//We now use sigaction() instead of signal(), because it supports SA_RESTART
const struct sigaction pause_sa = {
.sa_handler = pthread_pause_handler,
.sa_mask = sigset,
.sa_flags = SA_RESTART,
.sa_restorer = NULL
};
sigaction(PTHREAD_XSIG_STOP, &pause_sa, NULL);
sigaction(PTHREAD_XSIG_CONT, &pause_sa, NULL);
//UnBlock signals
pthread_sigmask(SIG_UNBLOCK, &sigset, NULL);
}
void pthread_pause_disable() {
//This is important for when you want to do some signal unsafe stuff
//Eg.: locking mutex, calling printf() which has internal mutex, etc...
//After unlocking mutex, you can enable pause again.
pthread_pause_init();
//Make sure all signals are dispatched before we block them
sem_wait(&pthread_pause_sem);
//Block signals
sigset_t sigset;
sigemptyset(&sigset);
sigaddset(&sigset, PTHREAD_XSIG_STOP);
sigaddset(&sigset, PTHREAD_XSIG_CONT);
pthread_sigmask(SIG_BLOCK, &sigset, NULL);
sem_post(&pthread_pause_sem);
}
int pthread_pause(pthread_t thread) {
sem_wait(&pthread_pause_sem);
//If signal queue is full, we keep retrying
while(pthread_kill(thread, PTHREAD_XSIG_STOP) == EAGAIN) usleep(1000);
pthread_pause_yield();
return 0;
}
int pthread_unpause(pthread_t thread) {
sem_wait(&pthread_pause_sem);
//If signal queue is full, we keep retrying
while(pthread_kill(thread, PTHREAD_XSIG_CONT) == EAGAIN) usleep(1000);
pthread_pause_yield();
return 0;
}
void *thread_test() {
//Whole process dies if you kill thread immediately before it is pausable
//pthread_pause_enable();
while(1) {
//Printf() is not async signal safe (because it holds internal mutex),
//you should call it only with pause disabled!
//Will throw helgrind warnings anyway, not sure why...
//See: man 7 signal-safety
pthread_pause_disable();
printf("Running!\n");
pthread_pause_enable();
//Pausing main thread should not cause deadlock
//We pause main thread here just to test it is OK
pthread_pause(main_thread);
//pthread_nsleep(0, 1000*1000);
pthread_unpause(main_thread);
//Wait for a while
//pthread_nsleep(0, 1000*1000*100);
pthread_unpause(main_thread);
}
}
int main() {
pthread_t t;
main_thread = pthread_self();
pthread_pause_enable(); //Will get inherited by all threads from now on
//you need to call pthread_pause_enable (or disable) before creating threads,
//otherwise first (un)pause signal will kill whole process
pthread_create(&t, NULL, thread_test, NULL);
while(1) {
pthread_pause(t);
printf("PAUSED\n");
pthread_sleep(3);
printf("UNPAUSED\n");
pthread_unpause(t);
pthread_sleep(1);
/*
pthread_pause_disable();
printf("RUNNING!\n");
pthread_pause_enable();
*/
pthread_pause(t);
pthread_unpause(t);
}
pthread_join(t, NULL);
printf("DIEDED!\n");
}
I am also working on library called "pthread_extra", which will have stuff like this and much more. Will publish soon.
UPDATE2: This is still causing deadlocks when calling pause/unpause rapidly (removed sleep() calls). Printf() implementation in glibc has mutex, so if you suspend thread which is in middle of printf() and then want to printf() from your thread which plans to unpause that thread later, it will never happen, because printf() is locked. Unfortunately i've removed the printf() and only run empty while loop in the thread, but i still get deadlocks under high pause/unpause rates. and i don't know why. Maybe (even realtime) Linux signals are not 100% safe. There is realtime signal queue, maybe it just overflows or something...
UPDATE3: i think i've managed to fix the deadlock, but had to completely rewrite most of the code. Now i have one (sig_atomic_t) variable per each thread which holds state whether that thread should be running or not. Works kinda like condition variable. pthread_(un)pause() transparently remembers this for each thread. I don't have two signals. now i only have one signal. handler of that signal looks at that variable and only blocks on sigsuspend() when that variable says the thread should NOT run. otherwise it returns from signal handler. in order to suspend/resume the thread i now set the sig_atomic_t variable to desired state and call that signal (which is common for both suspend and resume). It is important to use realtime signals to be sure handler will actualy run after you've modified the state variable. Code is bit complex because of the thread status database. I will share the code in separate solution as soon as i manage to simplify it enough. But i want to preserve the two signal version in here, because it kinda works, i like the simplicity and maybe people will give us more insight on how to optimize it.
UPDATE4: I've fixed the deadlock in original code (no need for helper variable holding the status) by using single handler for two signals and optimizing signal queue a bit. There is still some problem with printf() shown by helgrind, but it is not caused by my signals, it happens even when i do not call pause/unpause at all. Overall this was only tested on LINUX, not sure how portable the code is, because there seem to be some undocumented behaviour of signal handlers which was originaly causing the deadlock.
Please note that pause/unpause cannot be nested. if you pause 3 times, and unpause 1 time, the thread WILL RUN. If you need such behaviour, you should create some kind of wrapper which will count the nesting levels and signal the thread accordingly.
UPDATE5: I've improved robustness of the code by following changes: I ensure proper serialization of pause/unpause calls by use of semaphores. This hopefuly fixes last remaining deadlocks. Now you can be sure that when pause call returns, the target thread is actualy already paused. This also solves issues with signal queue overflowing. Also i've added SA_RESTART flag, which prevents internal signals from causing interuption of IO waits. Sleeps/delays still have to be restarted manualy, but i provide convenient wrapper called pthread_nanosleep() which does just that.
UPDATE6: i realized that simply restarting nanosleep() is not enough, because that way timeout does not run when thread is paused. Therefore i've modified pthread_nanosleep() to convert timeout interval to absolute time point in the future and sleep until that. Also i've hidden semaphore initialization, so user does not need to do that.
Here is example of thread function within a class with pause/resume functionality...
class SomeClass
{
public:
// ... construction/destruction
void Resume();
void Pause();
void Stop();
private:
static void* ThreadFunc(void* pParam);
pthread_t thread;
pthread_mutex_t mutex;
pthread_cond_t cond_var;
int command;
};
SomeClass::SomeClass()
{
pthread_mutex_init(&mutex, NULL);
pthread_cond_init(&cond_var, NULL);
// create thread in suspended state..
command = 0;
pthread_create(&thread, NULL, ThreadFunc, this);
}
SomeClass::~SomeClass()
{
// we should stop the thread and exit ThreadFunc before calling of blocking pthread_join function
// also it prevents the mutex staying locked..
Stop();
pthread_join(thread, NULL);
pthread_cond_destroy(&cond_var);
pthread_mutex_destroy(&mutex);
}
void* SomeClass::ThreadFunc(void* pParam)
{
SomeClass* pThis = (SomeClass*)pParam;
timespec time_ns = {0, 50*1000*1000}; // 50 milliseconds
while(1)
{
pthread_mutex_lock(&pThis->mutex);
if (pThis->command == 2) // command to stop thread..
{
// be sure to unlock mutex before exit..
pthread_mutex_unlock(&pThis->mutex);
return NULL;
}
else if (pThis->command == 0) // command to pause thread..
{
pthread_cond_wait(&pThis->cond_var, &pThis->mutex);
// dont forget to unlock the mutex..
pthread_mutex_unlock(&pThis->mutex);
continue;
}
if (pThis->command == 1) // command to run..
{
// normal runing process..
fprintf(stderr, "*");
}
pthread_mutex_unlock(&pThis->mutex);
// it's important to give main thread few time after unlock 'this'
pthread_yield();
// ... or...
//nanosleep(&time_ns, NULL);
}
pthread_exit(NULL);
}
void SomeClass::Stop()
{
pthread_mutex_lock(&mutex);
command = 2;
pthread_cond_signal(&cond_var);
pthread_mutex_unlock(&mutex);
}
void SomeClass::Pause()
{
pthread_mutex_lock(&mutex);
command = 0;
// in pause command we dont need to signal cond_var because we not in wait state now..
pthread_mutex_unlock(&mutex);
}
void SomeClass::Resume()
{
pthread_mutex_lock(&mutex);
command = 1;
pthread_cond_signal(&cond_var);
pthread_mutex_unlock(&mutex);
}
I'm writing a multithreaded app.
I was using the boost::interprocess classes (version 1.36.0)
Essentially, I have worker threads that need to be notified when work is available for them to do.
I tried both the "semaphore" and "condition" approaches.
In both cases, the CSwitch (context switch) for the worker threads seemed very high, like 600 switches per second.
I had a gander at the code and it seems like it just checks a flag (atomically using a mutex) and then yields the timeslice before trying again next time.
I was expecting the code to use WaitForSingleObject or something.
Ironically, this was exactly how I was doing it before deciding to do it "properly" and use Boost! (i.e. using a mutex to check the status of a flag regularly). The only difference was, in my approach I was sleeping like 50ms between checks so I didn't have the high CSwitch problem (and yes it's fine for me that work won't start for up to 50ms).
Several questions:
Does this "high" CSwitch value matter?
Would this occur if the boost library was using CRITICAL_SECTIONS instead of semaphores (I don't care about inter-process syncing - all threads are in same process)?
Would this occur if boost was using WaitForSingleObject?
Is there another approach in the Boost libs that uses the aforementioned Win32 wait methods (WaitForXXX) which I assume won't suffer from this CSwitch issue.
Update: Here is a pseudo code sample. I can't add the real code because it would be a bit complex. But this is pretty much what I'm doing. This just starts a thread to do a one-off asynchronous activity.
NOTE: These are just illustrations! There is loads missing from this sample, e.g. if you call injectWork() before the thread has hit the "wait" it just won't work. I just wanted to illustrate my use of boost.
The usage is something like:
int main(int argc, char** args)
{
MyWorkerThread thread;
thread.startThread();
...
thread.injectWork("hello world");
}
Here is the example using boost.
class MyWorkerThread
{
public:
/// Do work asynchronously
void injectWork(string blah)
{
this->blah = blah;
// Notify semaphore
this->semaphore->post();
}
void startThread()
{
// Start the thread (Pseudo code)
CreateThread(threadHelper, this, ...);
}
private:
static void threadHelper(void* param)
{
((MyWorkerThread*)param)->thread();
}
/// The thread method
void thread()
{
// Wait for semaphore to be invoked
semaphore->wait();
cout << blah << endl;
}
string blah;
boost::interprocess::interprocess_semaphore* semaphore;
};
And here was my "naive" polling code:
class MyWorkerThread_NaivePolling
{
public:
MyWorkerThread_NaivePolling()
{
workReady = false;
}
/// Do work asynchronously
void injectWork(string blah)
{
section.lock();
this->blah = blah;
this->workReady = true;
section.unlock();
}
void startThread()
{
// Start the thread (Pseudo code)
CreateThread(threadHelper, this, ...);
}
private:
/// Uses Win32 CriticalSection
class MyCriticalSection
{
MyCriticalSection();
void lock();
void unlock();
};
MyCriticalSection section;
static void threadHelper(void* param)
{
((MyWorkerThread*)param)->thread();
}
/// The thread method
void thread()
{
while (true)
{
bool myWorkReady = false;
string myBlah;
// See if work set
section.lock();
if (this->workReady)
{
myWorkReady = true;
myBlah = this->blah;
}
section.unlock();
if (myWorkReady)
{
cout << blah << endl;
return;
}
else
{
// No work so sleep for a while
Sleep(50);
}
}
}
string blah;
bool workReady;
};
Cheers,
John
On non-POSIX systems, it seems that interprocess_condition is emulated using a loop, as you describe in your in question. And interprocess_semaphore is emulated with a mutex and an interprocess_condition, so wait()-ing ends up in the same loop.
Since you mention that you don't need the interprocess synchronization, you should look at Boost.Thread, which offers a portable implementation of condition variables. Amusingly, it seems that it is implemented on Windows in the "classical" way, using a... Semaphore.
If you do not mind a Windows specific (newer versions on windows), check the link for light weight condition variables CONDITION_VARIABLE (like critical sections):