Re: [boost] [thread] [repost] proposal to manage portable and non portable thread attributes

21 Jan 2009

      Hello, I first posted this six months ago, allow me to repost just in
case it went unnoticed:

Note that I don't know the Windows platform, so I'm unable to tell which attributes are portable.
What it is important is to be as close as possible to the user needs even if all the interfaces are not portable. I supose this was the intent of the native_handle_type found already on the ++0x and the Thread library.

My old proposal was surely not the best one, but I realy think the needs are yet there. Applications needs sometimes to use non portable interfaces to get the better from the system at hand. The current C++0x and Boost.Thread  allows to get native_handle_type of a thread and a mutex but don't allows to set the non portable atributes at the creation, in particular for the thread attributes.

I'm no more interested you analize my old proposal, but you consider the needs of the users and see how we can give them what they need.

Thanks,
Vicente

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "vicente.botet" <vicente.botet@wanadoo.fr>
To: <boost@lists.boost.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2008 11:01 PM
Subject: [boost] [thread] proposal to manage portable and non portablethread attributes
...
Hello,
Boost.thread has already a non portable interface to get the thread handle
class thread {
public:
   ...
   typedef np_native_handle_type native_handle_type;
   native_handle_type native_handle();
   ...
};
Boost.Thread do not allow to pass thread attributes on the thread 
constructor. I supose that this is due to portable issues. Could we 
identifiy which attributes are portable and which one not?
The portable attributes (as stack size, ...) can be grouped on a 
thread_attributes class.
In order to be able to pass whatever attribute to the thread constructor we 
can add the setting of non portable attributes to this thread_attributes 
class, and making the thread constructor take a thread_attributes in 
addition to the existing parameters.
class thread {
public:
   class thread_attributes {
       // portable attributes
public:
       // set/get of attributes
       // ..
#if defined(BOOST_THREAD_PLATFORM_WIN32)
// ... window version
#elif defined(BOOST_THREAD_PLATFORM_PTHREAD)
private:
   pthread_attr_t native_attributes;
public:
   set_np_attributes(const pthread_attr_t* h);
   // ... other
#else
#error "Boost threads unavailable on this platform"
#endif
   };
   thread(const thread_attributes*p, F f,A1 a1);
...
};
The portable application needing some specific configuration can construct 
portable threads using the following schema
thread::thread_attributes attr;
       // set portable attributes
       // ...
   #if defined(BOOST_THREAD_PLATFORM_WIN32)
       // ... window version
   #elif defined(BOOST_THREAD_PLATFORM_PTHREAD)
       // ... pthread version
       pthread_attr_t native_attributes;
       pthread_attr_init(&native_attributes);
       pthread_attr_setstacksize(&native_attributes, 1000000);
       attr.set_np_attributes(&native_attributes);
   #else
   #error "Boost threads unavailable on this platform"
   #endif
       thread th(attr, f,ctx);
What do you think?
Vicente
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