Question

I am currently working on a project where I have to build a shell for a C++ dll, so a new C# GUI can use its functions.
However I got the following problem, in the C++ portion I have to create a new thread for specific reasons, and I want to pass an int array to the new thread.
Note that the values assigned to the array in the function in which this happens are gained from the C# portion of the code.

__declspec( dllexport ) void CreateReportPane(int &id, int &what)
{
    DWORD threadId; 
    int iArray[2] = { id, what};    

    HANDLE hThread = CreateThread( NULL, 0, CreateReportPaneThread, iArray, 0,  &threadId);
    if (hThread == NULL) 
    {           
        ExitProcess(3);
    }    
}

The problem arises in the new thread, I can reliably fetch the first value out of the array, but the 2nd value seems to be released, here is the code on the other side.

DWORD WINAPI CreateReportPaneThread(LPVOID lparam)
{
    int id, what;
    id = *(( int * )lparam);
    what = *(((int *)lparam)+1) ; 
    CreateReportPaneOriginal(id, what);

    return 0;
}

Is there any way to prevent the values in the array from getting released while not holding the original thread captive?
A big thank you in advance

Answer 1

int iArray[2] = { id, what};    

HANDLE hThread = CreateThread(...,CreateReportPaneThread, iArray, ...);

The problem is that iArray is a local array which means this gets destroyed when the function CreateReportPane() returns. So what CreateReportPaneThread() refers to doesn’t exist. You get the first value just by chance. There is no such guarantee that you would get even the first value.

Use dynamic array:

int * iArray  = new int[2];
iArray[0] = id;
iArray[1] = what;

HANDLE hThread = CreateThread(...,CreateReportPaneThread, iArray, ...);

Remember to write deallocate the array once you’re done with it in CreateReportPaneThread:

DWORD WINAPI CreateReportPaneThread(PVOID *data)
{
     int *array = static_cast<int*>(data);

     int id = array[0], what = array[1];

     delete []array; //MUST DO IT to avoid memory leak!

     //rest of your code
}