ACE (adaptive comminucations framework) wirh QT and MSVC2013 (VC12)

I am having trouble using ACE on Windows (have used it with great success on both OS-X and Linux(Ubuntu). It crashes in the ACE_OS::thread_mutex_lock (ACE_thread_mutex_t *m) function.

The OS is Windows 7 64bit. I am building a 32bit application though (tried 64bit). I followed http://www.dre.vanderbilt.edu/~schmidt/DOC_ROOT/ACE/ACE-INSTALL.html#win32 in order to build the 32bit libraries of ACE. The ACE version is 6.4.0. The ACE_vc12.sln is build with VS2013_express. My application (that works on OS-X using ACE) is build with QT5.7.0(32bit version) with kit configured to use MSCV2013 32bit configuration.

My project .pro file in QT looks like this (with some obfuscation):

`QT += core
QT += gui
CONFIG += debug
greaterThan(QT_MAJOR_VERSION, 4): QT += widgets
ACE = c:/ACE_wrappers
PathToIs = //Users/xxx/Dropbox/_Projects/xxx/is/yyy
LIBS = -L$$ACE/lib -lACEd -lpthread
TARGET = ZZZ_CSCI
include($$PathToIs/lib/ace.pri)
include($$PathToIs/Some_other.pri)
include($$PathToIs/Yet_another_pri.pri)
INCLUDEPATH += $$PathToIs/lib/shared
INCLUDEPATH += $$PathToIs/lib/utilities
TEMPLATE = app
SOURCES += main.cpp \
../../../../../lib/utilities/windows/UtilitiesWindows.cpp
HEADERS += \
$$PathToIs/lib/shared/GlobalDefs.h \
../../../../../lib/utilities/Utilities.h
INCLUDEPATH += C:/ACE_wrappers/include
DEPENDPATH += C:/ACE_wrappers/include`

The -lpthread causes a library not found link error. What should I use for it in Windows (I believe that is linux osx specific library)?

LINK : fatal error LNK1104: cannot open file 'pthread.lib'

Out of desperation, I have removed -lpthread completely, which of course removes the linker error, but then when the application starts up, I get a crash in the function below:

ACE_OS::thread_mutex_lock (ACE_thread_mutex_t *m)
{
  // ACE_OS_TRACE ("ACE_OS::thread_mutex_lock");
#if defined (ACE_HAS_THREADS)
# if defined (ACE_HAS_WTHREADS)
  ::EnterCriticalSection (m);
  return 0;
# else
  return ACE_OS::mutex_lock (m);
# endif /* ACE_HAS_WTHREADS */
#else
  ACE_UNUSED_ARG (m);
  ACE_NOTSUP_RETURN (-1);
#endif /* ACE_HAS_THREADS */
}

The cursor of the debugger in QT points to the line ::EnterCriticalSection (m);

So my deduction is that some pthread library is required in windows for ACE to function correctly, but I have no idea where to find and more importantly, what to look for.

Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Regards Ivor

Solution

So after a bit of trolling on the web, I saw that a company GlobeTOM uses ACE and I happen to know one of the owners. Gave him a call and they indicated that they used pthreads for Windows.

So got that from the WWWW and saw that I actually already tried it as well. Knowing that that path should work, was a big help.

This used the latest files, placed the dll in Windows/System32 and the lib and include files into the VC folder of MSVC2013. I used the 32bit libs.

Also then edited the .pro to include the libs. Actually, I right-clicked on the project in QT and selected "Add library", then selected "external library" and browsed to the .lib file. This adds the section into the .pro file. There are some specific options to select should you need to.

The lib to use is thus pthreadVC.lib.

Thanks to GlobeTOM for the pointers.

Ivor