Is there a thread safe workaround for std::string gcc2.96 ?

[Karl Bridger]

I am having some trouble with, what I believe is a race condition in the std::string library in multi thread applications on multi-cpu x86 boxs.

The version in question is: gcc: 2.96 20000731 (Red Hat Linux 7.1 2.96-98)

>From my research I have concluded that there exists known bugs/issues with this version (please correct me if I'm wrong).

What I would like to know is, is there a workaround for this problem?

Upgrading is not really an option since we have a large code base which has dependency on 3rd party libraries and would require a large porting effort..

I would be happy to replace the std::string implementation if that is an option.. A simple replacement would suffice, COW semantics are not required, stability is more important than performance (in this instance :)

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated..

Regards,
Karl