Also sprach
:
> I'm trying to accomplish something that seems, IMHO, like it should be
> relatively straightforward, but I can't seem to figure it out. I create
> a worker thread that goes off and processes for an extended period of
> time. Meanwhile, I would like to continue processing in the main
> thread, and periodically check whether the worker thread is finished.
> The example below illustrates this:
>
> use threads;
>
> sub work {
> print "Worker has started\n";
> sleep (3);
> die "Worker is finished\n";
> }
>
> my $worker = threads->create('work');
>
> while (** worker is not done **) {
> print "Main is performing a task\n";
> sleep (1);
> }
>
> $worker->join();
>
> print "Moving on...\n";
>
> What I can't seem to figure out is how to accomplish the ** worker is
> not done ** part.
>
> I have tried using threads->list to see the number of running threads,
> but this continues to show the worker, even after it has supposedly
> ended.
>
> I have also tried the deprecated Thread module, so I could look at
> $worker->done. However, it too, continues to say that the worker is not
> done.
Note what the documention of 'Thread' says on 'done':
done The "done" method returns true if the thread you're
checking has finished, and false otherwise. (Not avail-
able with ithreads.)
Since 'use threads' is using the ithreads-model, you're out of luck.
> I thought about using a shared variable as a flag, but this doesn't
> allow for the case of an abnormally terminated worker thread.
You can still cover that case by installing a handler for the
pseudosignal __DIE__ in your worker thread:
use threads;
use threads::shared;
my $working : shared;
sub work {
local $SIG{__DIE__} = sub {
print "Abnormal termination: ", shift;
$working = 0;
};
print "Worker has started\n";
sleep (3);
die "died\n" if rand > 0;
$working = 0;
}
$working = 1;
my $worker = threads->create('work');
while ($working) {
print "Main is performing a task\n";
sleep (1);
}
$worker->join();
print "Moving on...\n";
So now your worker thread will set $working to zero even under some
abnormal condition that would have normally caused an imediate death.
> One clue I may have is that the output includes the following:
>
> thread failed to start: Worker is finished
>
> when the worker thread dies. I'm wondering why it thinks that the
> thread didn't start?
This warning is a little misleading. perldiag says:
thread failed to start: %s
(F) The entry point function of threads->create() failed for
some reason.
'work' is your entry point function and having it die satisfies the
condition for "failed for some reason", I reckon.
Contrary to what perldiag thinks (the (F) indicates it's a fatal
trappable error), this is merely a warning and it can be shut up by
installing a handler for __WARN__.
Tassilo
--
use bigint;
$n=71423350343770280161397026330337371139054411854 220053437565440;
$m=-8,;;$_=$n&(0xff)<<$m,,$_>>=$m,,print+chr,,while(($ m+=
<=200);
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