Re: Question on pthread_cancel/pthread_exit and thread stack unwind

[Eljay Love-Jensen <eljay at adobe dot com>]

Hi Yufeng,

One alternative is to make sure all items are created / destructed in the 
main thread then handed over to the spawned threads, keeping track of which 
object is under the domain of which TID.  Use reference counting, and post 
their imminent demise to a reaper list which the main thread acts 
upon.  Any TID that is noted causes the main thread to go through it's 
outstanding object list to put all those items on the reap list -- note 
that reference counts may let them stay around for a few cycles until the 
things referring to them are destructed.  Disallow stack based objects in 
threads.

May not be doable depending on all your developers and the third party code 
you use.

Or, you could try fixing those issues of pthread_cancel / pthread_exit 
abuse with QA and apoplectical management.

Or, try bribing the developers with cookies and donuts.  If that fails, use 
thumbscrews.

Or, if you want proper garbage collecting in a multithreaded environment, 
use Java.  (Multithreading is a "bolt on" for C and 
C++.  Unfortunately.  It's not going become part of the language proper any 
time soon.)

--Eljay