Consider the following code using the POSIX Pthreads API: thread2.c
#include
#include
#include
#include
int myglobal;
void *thread_function(void *arg) {
int i, j;
for ( i=0; i<20; i++ ) {
j=myglobal;
j=j+1;
printf(".");
fflush(stdout);
sleep(1);
myglobal=j;
}
return NULL;
}
int main(void) {
pthread_t mythread;
int i;
if ( pthread_create( &mythread, NULL, thread_function,
NULL) ) {
printf(ldquo;error creating thread.");
abort();
}
for ( i=0; i<20; i++) {
myglobal=myglobal+1;
printf("o");
fflush(stdout);
sleep(1);
}
if ( pthread_join ( mythread, NULL ) ) {
printf("error joining thread.");
abort();
}
printf("\nmyglobal equals %d\n",myglobal);
exit(0);
}
In main() we first declare a variable called mythread, which has a type of pthread_t. This is essentially an ID for a thread. Next, the if statement creates a thread associated with mythread. The call pthread_create() returns zero on success and a nonzero value on failure. The third argument of pthread_create() is the name of a function that the new thread will execute when it starts. When this thread_function() returns, the thread terminates. Meanwhile, the main program itself defines a thread, so that there are two threads executing. The pthread_join function enables the main thread to wait until the new thread completes.
a. What does this program accomplish?
b. Here is the output from the executed program:
$ ./thread2
..o. o.o. o.oo. o.o. o.o. o.o. o.o. o..o. o.o. o.o
myglobal equals 21
Is this the output you would expect? If not, what has gone wrong?