learning threads on linux

Question

Linux is a new platform to me. I\'ve coded on Windows in c++ for a number of years and have become comfortable with multithreading on that platform.

Along comes C++

Answer 1

std::thread is boost::thread accepted into C++11 with some extras. My understanding is that if boost::thread gets replaced in code with std::thread it should still compile and work.

boost::thread is based on pthreads design, providing thin C++ wrappers over thread, mutex and condition variables. Thread cancellation though was left outside the scope of C++11, since there was no agreement how it should work in C++.

So, by learning pthreads you also learn std::thread concepts. std::thread adds mostly syntax sugar and convenience functions on top of pthreads C API.

With regards to WaitForMultipleObjects(), neither pthreads nor std::thread provide anything similar to its bWaitAll=FALSE mode, however, it's routinely simulated using pipes and select() on UNIX, or more modern eventfd() and epoll() on Linux. bWaitAll=TRUE mode can be simulated by waiting on all tasks in turn, since it doesn't proceed until all objects are ready anyway.