I'm confused about conditions_variables and how to use them (safely). In my application I've a class that makes a gui-thread but while the gui is constructed by the gui-thread, the main thread needs to wait.
The situation is the same as for the function below. The main thread makes a mutex, lock and condition_variable. It then makes the thread. While this worker thread has not passed a certain point (here printing the numbers), the main thread is not allowed to continue (i.e. has to wait for all numbers being printed).
How do I use condition_variables correctly in this context? Also, I've read that spontaneous wake-ups are an issue. How can I handle them?
int main()
{
std::mutex mtx;
std::unique_lock<std::mutex> lck(mtx);
std::condition_variable convar;
auto worker = std::thread([&]{
/* Do some work. Main-thread can not continue. */
for(int i=0; i<100; ++i) std::cout<<i<<" ";
convar.notify_all(); // let main thread continue
std::cout<<"\nworker done"<<std::endl;
});
// The main thread can do some work but then must wait until the worker has done it's calculations.
/* do some stuff */
convar.wait(lck);
std::cout<<"\nmain can continue"<<std::endl; // allowed before worker is entirely finished
worker.join();
}
Typically you'd have some observable shared state on whose change you block:
bool done = false;
std::mutex done_mx;
std::condition_variable done_cv;
{
std::unique_lock<std::mutex> lock(done_mx);
std::thread worker([&]() {
// ...
std::lock_guard<std::mutex> lock(done_mx);
done = true;
done_cv.notify_one();
});
while (true) { done_cv.wait(lock); if (done) break; }
// ready, do other work
worker.join();
}
Note that you wait in a loop until the actual condition is met. Note also that access to the actual shared state (done) is serialized via the mutex done_mx, which is locked whenever done is accessed.
There's a helper member function that performs the condition check for you so you don't need the loop:
done_cv.wait(lock, [&]() { return done; });