Getting bus error 10 with pthreads - c

Question

My command line tool keeps throwing the bus error: 10 message. Xcode debugger shows EXC_BAD_ACCESS message and highlights the function call that creates the thread. Manual debugging shows that the execution flow breaks at random positions inside the thread flow. I tried another compiler (gcc), but it ended up the same. Disabling pthread_mutex_lock() and pthread_mutex_unlock() doesn't help. I wrote this small example that reproduces the error.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <pthread.h>
typedef struct thread_args {
pthread_mutex_t* mutex;
} thread_args;
void* test(void* t_args) {
printf("Thread initiated\n");
thread_args* args = (thread_args* )t_args;
printf("Args casted\n");
pthread_mutex_lock(args->mutex);
printf("Mutex locked\n");
pthread_mutex_unlock(args->mutex);
printf("Mutex unlocked\n");
pthread_exit(NULL);
}
int main() {
pthread_mutex_t mutex1;
pthread_mutex_init(&mutex1, NULL);
thread_args args;
args.mutex = &mutex1;
pthread_t* thread;
printf("Initiating a thread\n");
pthread_create(thread, NULL, test, &args);
return(0);
}

Answer 1

I think, in your case,
pthread_create(thread, NULL, test, &args);
at this call, thread is a pointer and not allocated memory. So, essentially pthread_create() tries to write into uninitialized memory, which creates undefined behavior.
Referring the man page of pthread_create()
Before returning, a successful call to pthread_create() stores the ID of the new thread in the buffer pointed to by thread;....
Instead, you can do
pthread_t thread;
...
pthread_create(&thread, NULL, test, &args);

Answer 2

You're using an uninitialized pointer to your pthread_t. The actual storage of the pthread_t needs to be somewhere!
Try :
int main() {
pthread_mutex_t mutex1;
pthread_mutex_init(&mutex1, NULL);
thread_args args;
args.mutex = &mutex1;
pthread_t thread;
printf("Initiating a thread\n");
pthread_create(&thread, NULL, test, &args);
return(0);
}

Answer 3

As other answers pointed out, you need to initialize your pointer thread which you can simply do with:
pthread_t thread;
pthread_create(&thread, NULL, test, &args);
Well, then I'll have to allocate memory dynamically, because different
threads are spawned inside many different functions, hence I can't use
local variables, because I'm not going to join the threads. Then, how
can I free the allocated memory without waiting for the thread to
finish, i.e. without calling join?
No. You don't need to dynamically allocate just because you are going to spawn multiple threads. The thread identifier is no longer needed once a thread has been created So whether it's a local variable or malloced is not important. It's only needed when you need to join or change some characteristics of the thread -- for which you need the ID. Otherwise, you can even reuse the same thread for creating multiple threads. For example,
pthread_t thread;
for( i = 0; i<8; i++)
pthread_create(&thread, NULL, thread_func, NULL);
is perfectly fine. A thread can always get its own ID by calling pthread_self() if needed. But you can't pass a local variable mutex1 to thread functions as once main thread exits, the mutex1 no longer exits as thread created continues to use it. So you either need malloc mutex1 or make it a global variable.
Another thing to do is that if you decide to let the main thread exit then you should call pthread_exit(). Otherwise, when the main thread exits (either by calling exit or simply return) then the whole process will die, meaning, all the threads will die too.