The document provides an overview of POSIX thread programming. It discusses what threads and processes are, common multithreaded programming models like manager/worker and pipeline, shared memory models, thread safety, and the POSIX pthread API for thread management, mutexes, condition variables, and synchronization. It also covers conventions for creating and terminating threads with examples and explains joining and detaching threads.
The document provides an overview of POSIX thread programming. It discusses what threads and processes are, common multithreaded programming models like manager/worker and pipeline, shared memory models, thread safety, and the POSIX pthread API for thread management, mutexes, condition variables, and synchronization. It also covers conventions for creating and terminating threads with examples and explains joining and detaching threads.
The document provides an overview of POSIX thread programming. It discusses what threads and processes are, common multithreaded programming models like manager/worker and pipeline, shared memory models, thread safety, and the POSIX pthread API for thread management, mutexes, condition variables, and synchronization. It also covers conventions for creating and terminating threads with examples and explains joining and detaching threads.
The document provides an overview of POSIX thread programming. It discusses what threads and processes are, common multithreaded programming models like manager/worker and pipeline, shared memory models, thread safety, and the POSIX pthread API for thread management, mutexes, condition variables, and synchronization. It also covers conventions for creating and terminating threads with examples and explains joining and detaching threads.
What is a Thread? An independent stream of instructions that can be scheduled to run as such by the operating system. To the software developer, the concept of a "procedure" that runs independently from its main program may best describe a thread.
What is a Process? A process is created by the operating system, requires a fair amount of "overhead". Processes contain information about program resources and program execution state Process ID, process group ID, user ID, and group ID , Environment , Working directory, Program instructions, Registers , Stack , Heap , File descriptors etc.
Processes and Threads
Thread - Concepts This independent flow of control is accomplished because a thread maintains its own: Stack pointer Registers Scheduling properties (such as policy or priority) Set of pending and blocked signals Thread specific data.
Thread Concepts (Contd.)
Exists within a process and uses the process resources Has its own independent flow of control as long as its parent process exists and the OS supports it Duplicates only the essential resources it needs to be independently schedulable
Thread Concepts (Contd.)
May share the process resources with other threads that act equally independently (and dependently) Dies if the parent process dies - or something similar Is "lightweight" because most of the overhead has already been accomplished through the creation of its process
Thread Concepts (Contd.)
Changes made by one thread to shared system resources (such as closing a file) will be seen by all other threads. Two pointers having the same value point to the same data. Reading and writing to the same memory locations is possible, and therefore requires explicit synchronization by the programmer.
What are Pthreads?
Historically, hardware vendors have implemented their own proprietary versions of threads. In order to take full advantage of the capabilities provided by threads, a standardized programming interface was required. For UNIX systems, this interface has been specified by the IEEE POSIX 1003.1c standard (1995). Implementations adhering to this standard are referred to as POSIX threads, or Pthreads. Most hardware vendors now offer Pthreads in addition to their proprietary API's.
Pthreads are defined as a set of C language programming types and procedure calls, implemented with a pthread.h header/include file and a thread library
Seeking Parallelism
Multithreaded Programming Models
Manager/worker a single thread, the manager assigns work to other threads, the workers. Typically, the manager handles all input and parcels out work to the other tasks.
Pipeline a task is broken into a series of sub operations, each of which is handled in series, but concurrently, by a different thread. An automobile assembly line best describes this model.
Peer similar to the manager/worker model, but after the main thread creates other threads, it participates in the work.
Shared Memory Model
Thread Safeness
pthread API Thread management: Routines that work directly on threads - creating, detaching, joining, etc. They also include functions to set/query thread attributes (joinable, scheduling etc.)
Mutexes: Routines that deal with synchronization, called a "mutex", which is an abbreviation for "mutual exclusion". Mutex functions provide for creating, destroying, locking and unlocking mutexes. These are supplemented by mutex attribute functions that set or modify attributes associated with mutexes.
Condition variables: Routines that address communications between threads that share a mutex. Based upon programmer specified conditions. This group includes functions to create, destroy, wait and signal based upon specified variable values. Functions to set/query condition variable attributes are also included.
Synchronization: Routines that manage read/write locks and barriers.
Example call: errcode = pthread_create(&thread_id; &thread_attribute &thread_function; &func_arg);
thread_id is the thread id or handle (used to halt, etc.) thread_attribute various attributes standard default values obtained by passing a NULL pointer
thread_function the function to be run (takes and returns void*) func_arg an argument can be passed to thread_fun when it starts errorcode will be set nonzero if the create operation fails
