pthreads examples in C/C++

Simple examples that show how to use the pthreads library in C/C++. Use

make

to compile all the code using the supplied Makefile. Use

make clean

to remove object files and

make realclean

to remove object files and compiled programs.

Example

The file example.cc shows a basic example of how to create a set of threads to do some computation and then wait for them to finish. Each thread sleeps a random period of time and then prints out a short message.

Caution: This code does not use any synchronizaiton, so the print statements from each thread may be jumbled. See subsequent code for how to do this properly.

Problem

The file problem.cc shows a basic problem that exists when threads share memory but are not synchronized. Each time you run this code, the threads should count to a total of 200, but they have different answer each time.

Semaphore

The file semaphore.cc shows how to use a semaphore to synchronize access to shared memory.

Mutex

The file mutex.cc shows how to use a mutex to synchronize access to shared memory.