Is errno thread-safe? - c

Question

In errno.h, this variable is declared as extern int errno; so my question is, is it safe to check errno value after some calls or use perror() in multi-threaded code. Is this a thread safe variable? If not, then whats the alternative ?
I am using linux with gcc on x86 architecture.

Answer 1

Yes, it is thread safe. On Linux, the global errno variable is thread-specific. POSIX requires that errno be threadsafe.
See http://www.unix.org/whitepapers/reentrant.html
In POSIX.1, errno is defined as an
external global variable. But this
definition is unacceptable in a
multithreaded environment, because its
use can result in nondeterministic
results. The problem is that two or
more threads can encounter errors, all
causing the same errno to be set.
Under these circumstances, a thread
might end up checking errno after it
has already been updated by another
thread.
To circumvent the resulting
nondeterminism, POSIX.1c redefines
errno as a service that can access the
per-thread error number as follows
(ISO/IEC 9945:1-1996, §2.4):
Some functions may provide the error number in a variable accessed
through the symbol errno. The symbol
errno is defined by including the
header , as specified by the
C Standard ... For each thread of a
process, the value of errno shall not
be affected by function calls or
assignments to errno by other threads.
Also see http://linux.die.net/man/3/errno
errno is thread-local; setting it in one thread does not affect its value in any other thread.

Answer 2

Yes
Errno isn't a simple variable anymore, it's something complex behind the scenes, specifically for it to be thread-safe.
See $ man 3 errno:
ERRNO(3) Linux Programmer’s Manual ERRNO(3)
NAME
errno - number of last error
SYNOPSIS
#include <errno.h>
DESCRIPTION
...
errno is defined by the ISO C standard to be a modifiable lvalue of
type int, and must not be explicitly declared; errno may be a macro.
errno is thread-local; setting it in one thread does not affect its
value in any other thread.
We can double-check:
$ cat > test.c
#include <errno.h>
f() { g(errno); }
$ cc -E test.c | grep ^f
f() { g((*__errno_location ())); }
$

Answer 3

In errno.h, this variable is declared as extern int errno;
Here is what the C standard says:
The macro errno need not be the identifier of an object. It might expand to a modifiable lvalue resulting from a function call (for example, *errno()).
Generally, errno is a macro which calls a function returning the address of the error number for the current thread, then dereferences it.
Here is what I have on Linux, in /usr/include/bits/errno.h:
/* Function to get address of global `errno' variable. */
extern int *__errno_location (void) __THROW __attribute__ ((__const__));
# if !defined _LIBC || defined _LIBC_REENTRANT
/* When using threads, errno is a per-thread value. */
# define errno (*__errno_location ())
# endif
In the end, it generates this kind of code:
> cat essai.c
#include <errno.h>
int
main(void)
{
errno = 0;
return 0;
}
> gcc -c -Wall -Wextra -pedantic essai.c
> objdump -d -M intel essai.o
essai.o: file format elf32-i386
Disassembly of section .text:
00000000 <main>:
0: 55 push ebp
1: 89 e5 mov ebp,esp
3: 83 e4 f0 and esp,0xfffffff0
6: e8 fc ff ff ff call 7 <main+0x7> ; get address of errno in EAX
b: c7 00 00 00 00 00 mov DWORD PTR [eax],0x0 ; store 0 in errno
11: b8 00 00 00 00 mov eax,0x0
16: 89 ec mov esp,ebp
18: 5d pop ebp
19: c3 ret

Answer 4

yes, as it is explained in the errno man page and the other replies, errno is a thread local variable.
However, there is a silly detail which could be easily forgotten. Programs should save and restore the errno on any signal handler executing a system call. This is because the signal will be handled by one of the process threads which could overwrite its value.
Therefore, the signal handlers should save and restore errno. Something like:
void sig_alarm(int signo)
{
int errno_save;
errno_save = errno;
//whatever with a system call
errno = errno_save;
}

Answer 5

This is from <sys/errno.h> on my Mac:
#include <sys/cdefs.h>
__BEGIN_DECLS
extern int * __error(void);
#define errno (*__error())
__END_DECLS
So errno is now a function __error(). The function is implemented so as to be thread-safe.

Answer 6

We can check by running a simple program on a machine.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <pthread.h>
#include <errno.h>
#define NTHREADS 5
void *thread_function(void *);
int
main()
{
pthread_t thread_id[NTHREADS];
int i, j;
for(i=0; i < NTHREADS; i++)
{
pthread_create( &thread_id[i], NULL, thread_function, NULL );
}
for(j=0; j < NTHREADS; j++)
{
pthread_join( thread_id[j], NULL);
}
return 0;
}
void *thread_function(void *dummyPtr)
{
printf("Thread number %ld addr(errno):%p\n", pthread_self(), &errno);
}
Running this program and you can see different addresses for errno in each thread. The output of a run on my machine looked like:-
Thread number 140672336922368 addr(errno):0x7ff0d4ac0698
Thread number 140672345315072 addr(errno):0x7ff0d52c1698
Thread number 140672328529664 addr(errno):0x7ff0d42bf698
Thread number 140672320136960 addr(errno):0x7ff0d3abe698
Thread number 140672311744256 addr(errno):0x7ff0d32bd698
Notice that address is different for all threads.

Answer 7

On many Unix systems, compiling with -D_REENTRANT ensures that errno is thread-safe.
For example:
#if defined(_REENTRANT) || _POSIX_C_SOURCE - 0 >= 199506L
extern int *___errno();
#define errno (*(___errno()))
#else
extern int errno;
/* ANSI C++ requires that errno be a macro */
#if __cplusplus >= 199711L
#define errno errno
#endif
#endif /* defined(_REENTRANT) */

Answer 8

I think the answer is "it depends". Thread-safe C runtime libraries usually implement errno as a function call (macro expanding to a function) if you're building threaded code with the correct flags.