At Wednesday 2004-02-18 08:15, you wrote:
Craig Rodrigues wrote:
OK, well I don't do much Windows programming, so I don't really understand what event variables are. I'll have to do my homework and read up on them.
In terms of explaining what a semaphore is, my frame of reference is the stuff in POSIX:
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/functions/sem_post.html http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/functions/sem_wait.html http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/functions/sem_trywait.html http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/functions/sem_timedwait.html
Basically, a semaphore is initialized with a count. When you call sem_post(), the semaphore count is incremented. When you call sem_wait(), if the semaphore count is 0, then the thread blocks, else the semaphore count is decremented.
The interesting part of "POSIX on semaphores" is in
Look the the phrase "Much experience with semaphores shows" and futher paragraphs. In essense, it's says that semaphores are for signal handlers and for inter-process synchronization and discourages their use anywhere else.
fine....does this mean we can get semaphores now? or is it still considered "too dangerous" to let people who've been aware of the limitations since before boost existed actually USE them?
- Volodya
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