Multithreading in C++0x part 3: Starting Threads with Member Functions and Reference Arguments

Thursday, 26 February 2009

This is the third of a series of blog posts introducing the new C++0x thread library. The first two parts covered Starting Threads in C++0x with simple functions, and starting threads with function objects and additional arguments.

If you've read the previous parts of the series then you've seen how to start threads with functions and function objects, with and without additional arguments. However, the function objects and arguments are always copied into the thread's internal storage. What if you wish to run a member function other than the function call operator, or pass a reference to an existing object?

The C++0x library can handle both these cases: the use of member functions with std::thread requires an additional argument for the object on which to invoke the member function, and references are handled with std::ref. Let's take a look at some examples.

Invoking a member function on a new thread

Starting a new thread which runs a member function of an existing object: you just pass a pointer to the member function and a value to use as the this pointer for the object in to the std::thread constructor.

#include <thread>
#include <iostream>

class SayHello
{
public:
    void greeting() const
    {
        std::cout<<"hello"<<std::endl;
    }
};

int main()
{
    SayHello x;
    std::thread t(&SayHello::greeting,&x);
    t.join();
}

You can of course pass additional arguments to the member function too:

#include <thread>
#include <iostream>

class SayHello
{
public:
    void greeting(std::string const& message) const
    {
        std::cout<<message<<std::endl;
    }
};

int main()
{
    SayHello x;
    std::thread t(&SayHello::greeting,&x,"goodbye");
    t.join();
}

Now, the preceding examples both a plain pointer to a local object for the this argument; if you're going to do that, you need to ensure that the object outlives the thread, otherwise there will be trouble. An alternative is to use a heap-allocated object and a reference-counted pointer such as std::shared_ptr<SayHello> to ensure that the object stays around as long as the thread does:

#include <>

int main()
{
    std::shared_ptr<SayHello> p(new SayHello);
    std::thread t(&SayHello::greeting,p,"goodbye");
    t.join();
}

So far, everything we've looked at has involved copying the arguments and thread functions into the internal storage of a thread even if those arguments are pointers, as in the this pointers for the member functions. What if you want to pass in a reference to an existing object, and a pointer just won't do? That is the task of std::ref.

Passing function objects and arguments to a thread by reference

Suppose you have an object that implements the function call operator, and you wish to invoke it on a new thread. The thing is you want to invoke the function call operator on this particular object rather than copying it. You could use the member function support to call operator() explicitly, but that seems a bit of a mess given that it is callable already. This is the first instance in which std::ref can help — if x is a callable object, then std::ref(x) is too, so we can pass std::ref(x) as our function when we start the thread, as below:

#include <thread>
#include <iostream>
#include <functional> // for std::ref

class PrintThis
{
public:
    void operator()() const
    {
        std::cout<<"this="<<this<<std::endl;
    }
};

int main()
{
    PrintThis x;
    x();
    std::thread t(std::ref(x));
    t.join();
    std::thread t2(x);
    t2.join();
}

In this case, the function call operator just prints the address of the object. The exact form and values of the output will vary, but the principle is the same: this little program should output three lines. The first two should be the same, whilst the third is different, as it invokes the function call operator on a copy of x. For one run on my system it printed the following:

this=0x7fffb08bf7ef
this=0x7fffb08bf7ef
this=0x42674098

Of course, std::ref can be used for other arguments too — the following code will print "x=43":

#include <thread>
#include <iostream>
#include <functional>

void increment(int& i)
{
    ++i;
}

int main()
{
    int x=42;
    std::thread t(increment,std::ref(x));
    t.join();
    std::cout<<"x="<<x<<std::endl;
}

When passing in references like this (or pointers for that matter), you need to be careful not only that the referenced object outlives the thread, but also that appropriate synchronization is used. In this case it is fine, because we only access x before we start the thread and after it is done, but concurrent access would need protection with a mutex.

Next time

That wraps up all the variations on starting threads; next time we'll look at using mutexes to protect data from concurrent modification.

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Try it out

If you're using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 or g++ 4.3 or 4.4 on Ubuntu Linux you can try out the examples from this series using our just::thread implementation of the new C++0x thread library. Get your copy today.

Multithreading in C++0x Series

Here are the posts in this series so far:

• Multithreading in C++0x Part 1: Starting Threads
• Multithreading in C++0x Part 2: Starting Threads with Function Objects and Arguments
• Multithreading in C++0x Part 3: Starting Threads with Member Functions and Reference Arguments
• Multithreading in C++0x Part 4: Protecting Shared Data
• Multithreading in C++0x Part 5: Flexible locking with std::unique_lock<>
• Multithreading in C++0x part 6: Lazy initialization and double-checked locking with atomics
• Multithreading in C++0x part 7: Locking multiple mutexes without deadlock
• Multithreading in C++0x part 8: Futures, Promises and Asynchronous Function Calls

Posted by Anthony Williams
[/ threading /] permanent link
Tags: concurrency, multithreading, C++0x, thread
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