how to get thread id of a pthread in linux c program?

Question

In linux c program, how to print thread id of a thread created by pthread library?
for ex: we can get pid of a process by getpid()

Answer 1

I think not only is the question not clear but most people also are not cognizant of the difference. Examine the following saying,

POSIX thread IDs are not the same as the thread IDs returned by the Linux specific gettid() system call. POSIX thread IDs are assigned and maintained by the threading implementation. The thread ID returned by gettid() is a number (similar to a process ID) that is assigned by the kernel. Although each POSIX thread has a unique kernel thread ID in the Linux NPTL threading implementation, an application generally doesn’t need to know about the kernel IDs (and won’t be portable if it depends on knowing them).

Excerpted from: The Linux Programming Interface: A Linux and UNIX System Programming Handbook, Michael Kerrisk

IMHO, there is only one portable way that pass a structure in which define a variable holding numbers in an ascending manner e.g. 1,2,3... to per thread. By doing this, threads' id can be kept track. Nonetheless, int pthread_equal(tid1, tid2) function should be used.

if (pthread_equal(tid1, tid2)) printf("Thread 2 is same as thread 1.\n");
else printf("Thread 2 is NOT same as thread 1.\n");