Table of Contents
The file <ext/concurrence.h>
contains all the higher-level
constructs for playing with threads. In contrast to the atomics layer,
the concurrence layer consists largely of types. All types are defined within namespace __gnu_cxx.
These types can be used in a portable manner, regardless of the specific environment. They are carefully designed to provide optimum efficiency and speed, abstracting out underlying thread calls and accesses when compiling for single-threaded situations (even on hosts that support multiple threads.)
The enumerated type _Lock_policy details the set of
available locking
policies: _S_single, _S_mutex,
and _S_atomic.
_S_single
Indicates single-threaded code that does not need locking.
_S_mutex
Indicates multi-threaded code using thread-layer abstractions.
_S_atomic
Indicates multi-threaded code using atomic operations.
The compile-time constant __default_lock_policy is set
to one of the three values above, depending on characteristics of the
host environment and the current compilation flags.
Two more datatypes make up the rest of the
interface: __mutex, and __scoped_lock.
The scoped lock idiom is well-discussed within the C++
community. This version takes a __mutex reference, and
locks it during construction of __scoped_lock and
unlocks it during destruction. This is an efficient way of locking
critical sections, while retaining exception-safety.
These types have been superseded in the ISO C++ 2011 standard by the
mutex and lock types defined in the header
<mutex>.
Two functions and one type form the base of atomic support.
The type _Atomic_word is a signed integral type
supporting atomic operations.
The two functions functions are:
_Atomic_word __exchange_and_add_dispatch(volatile _Atomic_word*, int); void __atomic_add_dispatch(volatile _Atomic_word*, int);
Both of these functions are declared in the header file
<ext/atomicity.h>, and are in namespace __gnu_cxx.
__exchange_and_add_dispatch
Adds the second argument's value to the first argument. Returns the old value.
__atomic_add_dispatch
Adds the second argument's value to the first argument. Has no return value.
These functions forward to one of several specialized helper functions, depending on the circumstances. For instance,
__exchange_and_add_dispatch
Calls through to either of:
__exchange_and_add
Multi-thread version. Inlined if compiler-generated builtin atomics can be used, otherwise resolved at link time to a non-builtin code sequence.
__exchange_and_add_single
Single threaded version. Inlined.
However, only __exchange_and_add_dispatch
and __atomic_add_dispatch should be used. These functions
can be used in a portable manner, regardless of the specific
environment. They are carefully designed to provide optimum efficiency
and speed, abstracting out atomic accesses when they are not required
(even on hosts that support compiler intrinsics for atomic
operations.)
In addition, there are two macros
_GLIBCXX_READ_MEM_BARRIER
_GLIBCXX_WRITE_MEM_BARRIER
Which expand to the appropriate write and read barrier required by the host hardware and operating system.