POSIX Threads

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This chapter describes the pthreads (POSIX threads) library. This library provides support functions for multithreaded programs: thread primitives, synchronization objects, and so forth. It also implements POSIX 1003.1b semaphores (not to be confused with System V semaphores).

The threads operations (pthread_*) do not use errno. Instead they return an error code directly. The semaphore operations do use errno.

Menu

• Basic Thread Operations :: Creating, terminating, and waiting for threads.
• Thread Attributes :: Tuning thread scheduling.
• Cancellation :: Stopping a thread before it's done.
• Cleanup Handlers :: Deallocating resources when a thread is canceled.
• Mutexes :: One way to synchronize threads.
• Condition Variables :: Another way.
• POSIX Semaphores :: And a third way.
• Thread-Specific Data :: Variables with different values in different threads.
• Threads and Signal Handling :: Why you should avoid mixing the two, and how to do it if you must.
• Threads and Fork :: Interactions between threads and the fork function.
• Streams and Fork :: Interactions between stdio streams and fork.
• Miscellaneous Thread Functions :: A grab bag of utility routines.