module Thread: sig .. end
Lightweight threads.
type
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.
val self : unit -> t
Return the thread currently executing.
val id : t -> int
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.
Terminate prematurely the thread whose handle is given.
This functionality is available only with bytecode-level threads.
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.
val join : t -> unit
join th suspends the execution of the calling thread
until the thread th has terminated.
val wait_read : Unix.file_descr -> unit
See Thread.wait_write.
val wait_write : Unix.file_descr -> unit
Suspend the execution of the calling thread until at least
one character is available for reading (Thread.wait_read) or
one character can be written without blocking (wait_write)
on the given Unix file descriptor.
val wait_timed_read : Unix.file_descr -> float -> bool
See Thread.wait_timed_write.
val wait_timed_write : Unix.file_descr -> float -> bool
Same as Thread.wait_read and Thread.wait_write, but 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.
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.
Management of signals
Signal handling follows the POSIX thread model: signals generated
by a thread are delivered to that thread; signals generated externally
are delivered to one of the threads that does not block it.
Each thread possesses a set of blocked signals, which can be modified
using Thread.sigmask. This set is inherited at thread creation time.
Per-thread signal masks are supported only by the system thread library
under Unix, but not under Win32, nor by the VM thread library.
val sigmask : Signal.sigprocmask_command -> Signal.t list -> Signal.t list
sigmask cmd sigs changes the set of blocked signals for the
calling thread.
If cmd is `Set, blocked signals are set to those in
the list sigs.
If cmd is `Block, the signals in sigs are added to
the set of blocked signals.
If cmd is `Unblock, the signals in sigs are removed
from the set of blocked signals.
sigmask returns the set of previously blocked signals for the thread.
val wait_signal : Signal.t 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. The signals sigs are expected to be blocked before
calling wait_signal.
Jane Street extensions
val threads_have_been_created : unit -> bool
true iff Thread.create has ever been called, even if there is
currently only one running thread.
val num_threads : unit -> int option
num_threads () attempts to return the number of currently running
threads by parsing /proc. Since this is an operation frought with
potential failure, we return an option in cases of failure
val block_forever : unit -> 'a
block_forever () will block the calling thread forever.