by Hi All,
I have to write a small multithreaded terminal based application.
One thread (A) will be responsible for user interface (implemented
with ncurses+cdk). Another one (B) will be responsible for analog-digital
converter I/O, and the third one (C) will be responsible for network
communication.
The events generated by threads (B) and (C) should trigger appropriate
actions in the user interface widgets. However I can't be sure that
the ncurses+cdk implementation will be threadsafe. Therefore I need a
method to wait in thread (A) for key event, or mouse event, or event
generated by other threads.
I wouldn't like to use any busy-wait loop (with wgetch in no-delay
mode, and checking other threads' variables), because the system
performance is essential in this application (and other apps will run
simultaneously).
Currently I can imagine two solutions:
1) The events in (B) and (C) threads will simulate the special key events
which will be serviced by standard wgetch function (but how to do it
in a threadsafe way)?
2) The thread (A) will be waiting on select function for either stdin
events (the key events are read from there in ncurses, aren't they?)
or special pipe events. The threads (B) and (C) will write single byte
"messages" to that pipe to trigger processing in (A) thread.
Well, but in this case:
a) I'll loose the mouse events in ncurses
b) This approach is really complicated
Is there any simpler, more elegant solution?
Thank you in advance for any hints, pointers and so on (even RTFM are
appreciated when supported by appropriate URL ;-) ).
--
TIA & Best regards,
Wojtek Zabolotny