haiku/docs/user/support/TLS.dox
Niels Sascha Reedijk 5dee3b1245 Initial version of the TLS documentation.
git-svn-id: file:///srv/svn/repos/haiku/haiku/trunk@21226 a95241bf-73f2-0310-859d-f6bbb57e9c96
2007-05-24 11:13:20 +00:00

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/*
* Copyright 2007 Haiku Inc. All rights reserved.
* Distributed under the terms of the MIT License.
*
* Authors:
* Niels Sascha Reedijk <niels.reedijk@gmail.com>
* Corresponds to:
* /trunk/headers/os/support/TLS.h rev 19972
*/
/*!
\file TLS.h
\ingroup support
\brief Functions to use Thread Local Storage.
The Thread Local Storage API provides convenient methods to transform global
variables in to thread-context sensetive variables. Some applications rely on
global variables as a way of intercommunicating between functions and
objects, but one of your demands might be that the contents of that variable
differs between threads.
The following example demonstrates how an imaginary thread manager that
stores per thread data would function. The constructor of this
\c ThreadManager allocates the TLS variables using tls_allocate(). This only
has to be done once, and not in every spawned thread! Then, every spawned
thread that interacts with this thread manager, should call the
\c InitThread() function. This one associates the supplied thread data with
the TLS index using tls_set(). Each thread can get their associated data with
\c GetCurrentThreadData(), which uses tls_get() to retrieve the associated
thread data at the provided index.
\code
int32 gThreadName;
int32 gThreadData;
class ThreadManager
{
public:
// General initialisation
ThreadManager() {
gThreadName = tls_allocate();
gThreadStatus = tls_allocate();
};
// Called from the thread entry function
void InitThread(const char *name, void *data) {
tls_set(gThreadName, (void *)name);
tls_set(gThreadData, data);
};
// Can be called from any of the threads. The returned data will be that
// which the thread explicitly set in the InitThread() function
void *GetCurrentThreadData() {
printf("Thread %s asked for its data.\n", (const char*)tls_get(gThreadName));
return tls_get(gThreadData);
};
};
\endcode
\note
-# It is impossible to get data other than from your thread.
-# There is a limit to the number of TLS variables you can allocate. This
limit is define by #TLS_MAX_KEYS, but do realize that you share this
limit with all the libraries your application is linked to.
-# The actual global variables, in the example \c gThreadName and
\c gThreadData, are only indexes. You cannot use these variables to
access data without the TLS API.
*/
/*!
\def TLS_MAX_KEYS
\brief The maximum number of thread local storage variables. This number is
process wide.
*/
/*!
\fn int32 tls_allocate(void)
\brief Allocate a unique index to use for storing variables.
You should only have to do this once to allocate the global index, which you
can reuse in every thread.
\return A unique index to which you can associate per thread data. If we
overrun the maximum number of keys, as defined by #TLS_MAX_KEYS, the
function will return \c B_NO_MEMORY.
\see tls_get(), tls_set(), tls_address()
*/
/*!
\fn void *tls_get(int32 index)
\brief Retrieve the data stored for this thread at the provided \a index.
\param index The \a index that you retrieved with tls_allocate().
\return The data you set using tls_set() for this thread, or \c NULL if there
is no data set, or the \a index is invalid.
\see tls_allocate(), tls_set()
*/
/*!
\fn void **tls_address(int32 index)
\brief Retrieve the pointer that refers to the data of this thread at the
provided \a index.
You can use this pointer to directly manipulate your thread data.
\param index The \a index that you retrieved with tls_allocate().
\return The pointer to where your thread's data is, or \c NULL if the index
is invalid.
\see tls_allocate(), tls_set(), tls_get()
*/
/*!
\fn void tls_set(int32 index, void *value)
\brief Set the data of this thread at the provided \a index.
It is up to you to make sure the \a index is valid. Any invalid indeces can
lead to unpredicable results.
\param index The \a index that you retrieved with tls_allocate().
\param value The data that should be associated with the index for this
thread.
\see tls_allocate(), tls_get()
*/