How to manage properly pthread - c

Question

I have some random issues sometimes to join pthread. I can just say that the thread is not stuck in a deadlock with a mutex when the join is failing. Most of the time the thread is idle (sleep syscall) when the timeout occurred on join.
My need is basic. A way to start/stop a thread from the main thread. So I don't need to put mutex in start/stop manager on pthread state variable. The thread is working as an infinite loop most of the time. All my thread are designed with the same skeleton. A start and stop function. The thread function definition. I have a global variable g_event_ctx to store the current status of the thread. running to know I need to cancel it. is_joinable to know if I need to join the thread. Moreover I have sleep/read/write syscall on all my thread function (cancel point !)
typedef struct pthread_context
{
pthread_t id; /*!< pthread_t to be able to stop the thread later */
int running; /*!< allow to know if the thread is currently running */
int is_joinable; /*!< allow to know if the thread is joinable */
} str_pthread_context;
The code of the skeleton :
int start_x_manager (void)
{
pthread_t t_x;
if (g_event_ctx.x_thread.is_joinable) return 0;
PRINT_INFO ("Start x manager");
// start push x thread
if (pthread_create (&t_x, NULL, x_loop_thread, NULL))
PRINT_ERR_GOTO ("error on pthread_create for x thread");
pthread_setname_np(t_x, "x");
g_event_ctx.x_thread.id = t_x;
g_event_ctx.x_thread.is_joinable = 1;
g_event_ctx.x_thread.running = 1;
return 0;
error:
g_event_ctx.x_thread.running = 0;
g_event_ctx.x_thread.is_joinable = 0;
return 1;
}
int stop_x_manager (void)
{
struct timespec ts;
if (!g_event_ctx.x_thread.is_joinable) return 0;
PRINT_INFO ("Stop x manager");
if (g_event_ctx.x_thread.running)
{
CHECK_ERR_GOTO (pthread_cancel(g_event_ctx.x_thread.id) != 0, "Cannot cancel x thread");
g_event_ctx.x_thread.running = 0;
}
CHECK_ERR_GOTO (clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &ts) == -1, "Cannot get clock time");
ts.tv_sec += 5;
CHECK_ERR_GOTO (pthread_timedjoin_np (g_event_ctx.x_thread.id, NULL, &ts) != 0, "Cannot join x_thread");
g_event_ctx.x_thread.is_joinable = 0;
return 0;
error:
g_event_ctx.x_thread.running = 0;
g_event_ctx.x_thread.is_joinable = 0;
return 1;
}
The skeleton of the thread function :
void *x_loop_thread (void *arg __attribute__((__unused__)))
{
CHECK_ERR_GOTO (pthread_setcancelstate(PTHREAD_CANCEL_ENABLE, NULL) != 0, "Cannot set cancel state");
CHECK_ERR_GOTO (pthread_setcanceltype(PTHREAD_CANCEL_DEFERRED, NULL) != 0, "Cannot set cancel state");
PRINT_INFO ("Start x manager loop thread ...");
pthread_cleanup_push(x_manager_cleanup, some_stuff);
while (1)
{
// Do some stuff here
}
g_event_ctx.x_thread.running = 0;
pthread_exit (NULL);
error:
g_event_ctx.x_thread.running = 0;
pthread_cleanup_pop(1);
pthread_exit (NULL);
}
CHECK_ERR_GOTO is a macro which check a condition to know if I need to jump to label error.
What is the reason which can explain a timeout on the pthread_timedjoin_np ? Another piece of code which corrupted my thread id ? Is there a problem of design in my skeleton ?

Answer 1

You can sidestep the problem by putting a variable in the context structure indicating you want the background thread to stop, setting that variable in your main thread before calling join, and checking that variable periodically in the background thread, exiting the while(1) loop if it's true.
If you have any blocking calls that sleep forever, you can either have them time out and loop them with while(!want_to_stop) or, for select loops, add a file descriptor you can activate from the main thread when you want to stop (an eventfd or pipe).