ocaml/otherlibs/systhreads/thread.mli

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(*                                                                     *)
(*                         Objective Caml                              *)
(*                                                                     *)
(*  Xavier Leroy and Pascal Cuoq, projet Cristal, INRIA Rocquencourt   *)
(*                                                                     *)
(*  Copyright 1995 Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et   *)
(*  en Automatique.  All rights reserved.  This file is distributed    *)
(*  under the terms of the GNU Library General Public License.         *)
(*                                                                     *)
(***********************************************************************)

(* $Id$ *)

(* Module [Thread]: lightweight threads for Posix 1003.1c and Win32 *)

type t
        (* The type of thread handles. *)

(** Thread creation and termination *)

val create : ('a -> 'b) -> 'a -> t
        (* [Thread.create funct arg] creates a new thread of control,
           in which the function application [funct arg]
           is executed concurrently with the other threads of the program.
           The application of [Thread.create]
           returns the handle of the newly created thread.
           The new thread terminates when the application [funct arg]
           returns, either normally or by raising an uncaught exception.
           In the latter case, the exception is printed on standard error,
           but not propagated back to the parent thread. Similarly, the
           result of the application [funct arg] is discarded and not
           directly accessible to the parent thread. *)
external self : unit -> t = "caml_thread_self"
        (* Return the thread currently executing. *)
external id : t -> int = "caml_thread_id"
        (* Return the identifier of the given thread. A thread identifier
           is an integer that identifies uniquely the thread.
           It can be used to build data structures indexed by threads. *)
val exit : unit -> unit
        (* Terminate prematurely the currently executing thread. *)
val kill : t -> unit
        (* Terminate prematurely the thread whose handle is given. *)

(** Suspending threads *)

val delay: float -> unit
        (* [delay d] suspends the execution of the calling thread for
           [d] seconds. The other program threads continue to run during
           this time. *)
external join : t -> unit = "caml_thread_join"
        (* [join th] suspends the execution of the calling thread
           until the thread [th] has terminated. *)
val wait_read : Unix.file_descr -> unit
val wait_write : Unix.file_descr -> unit
        (* These functions do nothing in this implementation. *)
val wait_timed_read : Unix.file_descr -> timeout:float -> bool
val wait_timed_write : Unix.file_descr -> timeout:float -> bool
        (* Suspend the execution of the calling thread until at least
           one character is available for reading ([wait_read]) or
           one character can be written without blocking ([wait_write])
           on the given Unix file descriptor. Wait for at most
           the amount of time given as second argument (in seconds).
           Return [true] if the file descriptor is ready for input/output
           and [false] if the timeout expired. *)
        (* These functions return immediately [true] in the Win32
           implementation. *)
val select :
  read:Unix.file_descr list -> write:Unix.file_descr list ->
  exn:Unix.file_descr list -> timeout:float ->
    Unix.file_descr list * Unix.file_descr list * Unix.file_descr list
        (* Suspend the execution of the calling thead until input/output
           becomes possible on the given Unix file descriptors.
           The arguments and results have the same meaning as for
           [Unix.select]. *)
        (* This function is not implemented yet under Win32. *)
val wait_pid : int -> int * Unix.process_status
        (* [wait_pid p] suspends the execution of the calling thread
           until the process specified by the process identifier [p]
           terminates. Returns the pid of the child caught and
           its termination status, as per [Unix.wait]. *)
val wait_signal : int list -> int
        (* [wait_signal sigs] suspends the execution of the calling thread
           until the process receives one of the signals specified in the
           list [sigs].  It then returns the number of the signal received.
           Signal handlers attached to the signals in [sigs] will not
           be invoked.  Do not call [wait_signal] concurrently 
           from several threads on the same signals. *)
val yield : unit -> unit
        (* Re-schedule the calling thread without suspending it.
           This function can be used to give scheduling hints,
           telling the scheduler that now is a good time to
           switch to other threads. *)