Is it possible to kill a spinning thread?

Question

I am using ZThreads to illustrate the question but my question applies to PThreads, Boost Threads and other such threading libraries in C++.

class MyClass: p         


        

Answer 1

A general solution to the kind of question posted can be found in Herb Sutter article: Prefer Using Active Objects Instead of Naked Threads

This permits you to have something like this (excerpt from article):

class Active {
public:
  typedef function Message;

private:

  Active( const Active& );           // no copying
  void operator=( const Active& );    // no copying

  bool done;                         // le flag
  message_queue mq;        // le queue
  unique_ptr thd;          // le thread

  void Run() {
    while( !done ) {
      Message msg = mq.receive();
      msg();            // execute message
    } // note: last message sets done to true
  }

In the active object destructor you can have then:

~Active() {
    Send( [&]{ done = true; } ); ;
    thd->join();
  }

This solution promotes a clean thread function exist, and avoids all other issues related to an unclean thread termination.