Question

I am in a multi-threaded situation and I have a function that I want to be run from only one thread at a time. However, rather than serializing the function in the tradition manner, I want any threads that attempt to enter the function whilst the first thread is running it to return immediately. I do not want the second thread to wait for the first thread.

Here is my code:

function InitMutex(const Name:String; var Handle: THandle):Boolean;
begin
 Handle := CreateMutexA(NIL, True, PAnsiChar(Name));
 Result := not (GetLastError = ERROR_ALREADY_EXISTS);
end;


procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
 mHandle: THandle;
begin
 if not InitMutex(BalloonTipMutex, mHandle) then Exit;


 MessageBox(0, 'Executing Code....', '', 0);


 ReleaseMutex(mHandle);
 CloseHandle(mHandle);
end;

This is just an example with the same problem, cause I couldn’t do a test sample with the threads.

The problem is: I click button1 for the first time, The messagebox appears, while the messagebox is still displayed (suppose the function is still running) I press button1 again, nothing is displayed (which is what’s supposed to happen) but when I close the message box and press the button again, it shows nothing. (the function supposed to run again since its not running :S)

Answer 1

Try this instead:

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var  mHandle: THandle; 
begin   
  mHandle := 0;
  if InitMutex(BalloonTipMutex, mHandle) then 
  begin      
    MessageBox(0, 'Executing Code....', '', 0);
    ReleaseMutex(mHandle);  
  end;
  if handle <> 0 then
    CloseHandle(mHandle); 
end;

your problem is… Even if CreateMutex returns error ERROR_ALREADY_EXISTS, it did “open” the mutex. So when your first function exit, the mutex is not freed since your 2nd call opened it, but never closed it. So when you try to call your function a 3rd time, it fails not because your first call kept the mutex open, but because your 2nd call did.

Also, I think InitMutex should return Result := (Handle <> 0) and not (GetLastError = ERROR_ALREADY_EXISTS)

EDIT: On a side note, this isn’t really the way mutex are meant to be used. The “traditional” way to use mutex is to create them, then have your thread try to get ownership of them when you want to execute the code protected by the mutex. I would expect CreateMutex to be quite a bit slower than just taking ownership of a mutex and maybe there are some other pitfalls to that technique.