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Subject: Re: OT Multithreading, STL, and profiling

Author: Gregor Overney

Date: 18:46:51 08/11/01

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I know that thread safety got built into SGI's implementation of STL. But is far
from being efficient. I would not call it reentrant. But things keep improving.

>c) What does "thread safe" mean anyway? It doesn't crash, but is it right?
>

In the context of threaded applications, "thread safe" means that the module can
be called from multiple threads without destructive results.

While "reentrant" usually is used for "efficiently thread safe", meaning that
the functions/modules do not rely on static data and any form of synchronization
between threads. But I have seen people claiming their libraries are "reentrant"
by just adding semaphores to protect access. So, if it's inefficient but safe
when accessed by multiple threads, call it "thread safe". When it's efficient
and safe, call it "reentrant".

More about this topic can be found in [1].


[1] David R. Butenhof, Programming with POSIX Threads, Addison-Wesley
Professional Computer Series, Reading, Massachusetts, 1997.



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