Question

As a part of my project I have to modify a Numerical Integration Algorithm using threads.

This is roughly what happens in the conventional sequential approach..

void Controller(struct DE)
{
    //initialization step
    for(;;)   //till the entire range has not been covered...
    {
         //compute the next time-point solution using the previously known solutions.
         NIiter();
         //then check if the result is acceptable or not and take the necessary steps...
    }
}

Now this is what I intend to do….

void Controller(struct DE)
{
    //initialization step
    for(;;)   //till the entire range has been covered...
    {
         //compute the next time using the previously known solution.
         NIiter();
         //when I have an approximate solution available..launch a thread to compute the next time-point using this approximate solution as a previous solution...something like forward pipelining...
         //then check if BOTH the results are acceptable or not and take the necessary steps...
    }
}

But I dont understand how to notify my controller that the an approximate solution is available…so it can launch a new thread…

This is my first exposure to multi-threaded programming…so forgive me if this seems to be an obvious question..also I am using Pthread library in my project…

Answer 1

This is a vast topic but here are some pointers

1. Worker threads – Basically create a bunch of threads and have a queue of tasks. They take one of the queue and do the job
2. IPC – Here you have semaphores, shared memory, messaging passing. Links are on the page

The Wikipedia will get you going.