Thread Creation

#include <pthread.h>
int
	pthread_create(
									pthread_t *thread,
									const pthread_attr_t *attr,
									void *(*start_routine)(void*),
									void *arg
								);

The pthread_create api is defined above and it accepts the following args:

• thread: a pointer to the structure of pthread_t which is used to interact to with the created thread
• attr: to specify any attributes this thread might have like the size of the stack, info about the scheduling priority..etc.
  • This is initialized by a call to pthread_attr_init()
• functional pointer: which function should this thread start pointing (usage: pass in a function name)
• args: the arguments to the function above, if no args, we can just pass in NULL

Thread Completion

int pthread_join(pthread_t thread, void **value_ptr);

pass in a thread and retrieve the value in value_ptr, basically equal to

res = await execute(thread)
value_ptr = &res

Locks

int pthread_mutex_lock(pthread_mutex_t *mutex);
int pthread_mutex_unlock(pthread_mutex_t *mutex);

when you have a critical section, you can do

pthread_mutex_t lock = PTHREAD_MUTEX_INITIALIZER;
pthred_mutex_lock(&lock);
// critical section goes here...
pthread_mutex_unlock(&lock);

Or to initialize the lock dynamically, we can do

int rc = pthread_mutex_init(&lock, NULL)
assert(rc == 0);