Butenhof D.R. - Programming with POSIX(R) Threads [1997, DjVu, ENG]

Programming with POSIX(R) Threads

Год: 1997
Автор: David R. Butenhof
Жанр: Professional Computing Series
Издательство: Addison-Wesley
ISBN: 0201633922
Формат: DjVu
Качество: Отсканированные страницы
Количество страниц: 398
Описание: This book is about "threads" and how to use them. "Thread" is just a name for a basic software "thing" that can do work on a computer. A thread is smaller, faster, and more maneuverable than a traditional process. In fact, once threads have been added to an operating system, a "process" becomes just data--address space, files, and so forth--plus one or more threads that do something with all that data.

With threads, you can build applications that utilize system resources more efficiently, that are more friendly to users, that run blazingly fast on multiprocessors, and that may even be easier to maintain. To accomplish all this, you need only add some relatively simple function calls to your code, adjust to a new way of thinking about programming, and leap over a few yawning chasms. Reading this book carefully will, I hope, help you to accomplish all that without losing your sense of humor.

The threads model used in this book is commonly called "Pthreads," or "POSIX threads." Or, more formally (since you haven't yet been properly introduced), the POSIX 1003.1cn1995 standard. I'll give you a few other names later-but for now, "Pthreads" is all you need to worry about.

As I write this, Sun's Solaris, Digital's Digital UNIX, and SGI's IRIX already support Pthreads. The other major commercial UNIX operating systems will soon have Pthreads as well, maybe even by the time you read this, including IBM's AIX and Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX. Pthreads implementations are also available for Linux and other UNIX operating systems.

In the personal computer market, Microsoft's Win32 API (the primary programming interface to both Windows NT and Windows 95) supports threaded programming, as does IBM's OS/2. These threaded programming models are quite different from Pthreads, but the important first step toward using them productively is understanding concurrency, synchronization, and scheduling. The rest is (more or less) a matter of syntax and style, and an experienced thread programmer can adapt to any of these models.

The threaded model can be (and has been) applied with great success to a wide range of programming problems. Here are just a few:

Large scale, computationally intensive programs High-performance application programs and library code that can take advantage of multiprocessor systems Library code that can be used by threaded application programs Realtime application programs and library code Application programs and library code that perform I/O to slow external devices (such as networks and human beings). Intended audience

This book assumes that you are an experienced programmer, familiar with developing code for an operating system in "the UNIX family" using the ANSI C language. I have tried not to assume that you have any experience with threads or other forms of asynchronous programming. The Introduction chapter provides a general overview of the terms and concepts you'll need for the rest of the book. If you don't want to read the Introduction first, that's fine, but if you ever feel like you're "missing something" you might try skipping back to get introduced.

Along the way you'll find examples and simple analogies for everything. In the end I hope that you'll be able to continue comfortably threading along on your own. Have fun, and "happy threading."