Re: pthreads status? [was Re: [Fwd: Many changes in latest snapshot]]

[Chris Faylor <cgf at cygnus dot com>]

On Tue, Dec 07, 1999 at 10:15:28PM -0600, Mumit Khan wrote:
>Just searched the archives for both cygwin and cygwin-developers lists,
>looking for pthread related discussion. Not much at all, so here're
>my two little questions:
>
>1. Anybody actively working on it?

No, not that I'm aware of.

>2. Why not try to reuse code from pthreads-win32 project? License
>   issue raises its ugly head again (isn't the copyright there owned
>   by Cygnus as well?)?

The code should be copyright Cygnus since Ben Elliston developed it, so
there is no reason not to integrate it, I guess.  I have always thought
that it would be a culture clash since pthreads-win32 does not understand
anything about cygwin.  I would think that that would be important.

>> pthread_key_create    NO
>> pthread_key_delete    NO
>> pthread_setspecific   NO
>> pthread_getspecific   NO
>
>I can cook these up when I get some time.
>
>> pthread_mutex_init     ?
>> pthread_mutex_lock     ?
>> pthread_mutex_unlock   ? 
>> pthread_mutex_destroy  ?
>
>These are quite tricky to get right ... I have to find out if my minimal
>tests failed because of other bugs, or these are not quite working as
>expected. I hate debugging threaded code, as much as I hate debugging
>startup code.

I'll take startup code any day.

>The trouble are the various missing types and macros. I'm hoping to get
>a bit of free time soon, so perhaps I'll take a look.  Now if I can only
>find my pthreads reference ...

I don't know if it will help but the original developers of the pthreads
implementation are listed in the sources.  They used to be subscribed
to cygwin-developers but they haven't replied to my email messages in
a while.  They were the initial contributors of the thread-safe and
pthreads stuff that is currently in cygwin.

Maybe if somebody else contacted them they would be more amenable to
discussing pthreads and possibly they have even continued to develop
the code.

cgf