From: William Kempf (sirwillard_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-08-24 09:43:16
--- In boost_at_[hidden], "Milutin Jovanovic" <miki_at_o...> wrote:
>
> Sorry for being off-topic, but the reason behind questions is our
present
> thread discussion.
>
> How standard are pthreads on UNIX? Is there a universal
distribution, or are
> there separate platform distributions which are trying to be
compatible
> amongst each other? Where is the best place to get pthreads for
Linux and/or
> Windows?
How standard depends on how you want to define "standard" ;). The
pthreads standard allows for a lot of "optional functionality"
and "implementation specific properties". For instance, the ability
to create a mutex as shareable is not required, and because of the
interface that ability had to be removed from the Win32
implementation despite the fact that Win32 allows for shared mutexes
natively.
Beyond that, I'm not a Unix programmer, so don't have any direct
experience. However, I have heard that each Unix provider puts the
posix routines at the bottom of their list, so even if they are
present they're often not well implemented. How true that is I don't
know... I'm just sharing a complaint I've heard from some Unix
programmers.
I'm not sure where to get pthreads for Linux (though I believe they
should be a part of the standard installation?), but the pthreads for
Win32 can be found at http://sources.redhat.com/pthreads-win32/.
Bill Kempf