C++0x has no semaphores? How to synchronize threads?

Question

Is it true that C++0x will come without semaphores? There are already some questions on Stack Overflow regarding the use of semaphores. I use them (posix semaphores) all the time to let a thread wait for some event in another thread:

void thread0(...)
{
  doSomething0();

  event1.wait();

  ...
}

void thread1(...)
{
  doSomething1();

  event1.post();

  ...
}

If I would do that with a mutex:

void thread0(...)
{
  doSomething0();

  event1.lock(); event1.unlock();

  ...
}

void thread1(...)
{
  event1.lock();

  doSomethingth1();

  event1.unlock();

  ...
}

Problem: It's ugly and it's not guaranteed that thread1 locks the mutex first (Given that the same thread should lock and unlock a mutex, you also can't lock event1 before thread0 and thread1 started).

So since boost doesn't have semaphores either, what is the simplest way to achieve the above?

Answer 1

You can easily build one from a mutex and a condition variable:

#include <mutex>
#include <condition_variable>

class semaphore {
    std::mutex mutex_;
    std::condition_variable condition_;
    unsigned long count_ = 0; // Initialized as locked.

public:
    void release() {
        std::lock_guard<decltype(mutex_)> lock(mutex_);
        ++count_;
        condition_.notify_one();
    }

    void acquire() {
        std::unique_lock<decltype(mutex_)> lock(mutex_);
        while(!count_) // Handle spurious wake-ups.
            condition_.wait(lock);
        --count_;
    }

    bool try_acquire() {
        std::lock_guard<decltype(mutex_)> lock(mutex_);
        if(count_) {
            --count_;
            return true;
        }
        return false;
    }
};