Question

I wrote a multithreading program like this,

#include <queue>
#include <cstdio>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <pthread.h>
#include <unistd.h>

using namespace std;

pthread_mutex_t mu = PTHREAD_MUTEX_INITIALIZER;
pthread_cond_t ec = PTHREAD_COND_INITIALIZER;
pthread_cond_t fc = PTHREAD_COND_INITIALIZER;

queue<int> qu;
const int N = 2;

void *producer(void *arg)
{
    while(1) {
        pthread_mutex_lock(&mu);
        int tmp = rand();
        qu.push(tmp);
        pthread_cond_signal(&ec);
        if ((int) qu.size() > N) {
            pthread_cond_wait(&fc, &mu);
        }
        pthread_mutex_unlock(&mu);
    }
}

void *consumer(void *arg)
{
    while(1) {
        pthread_mutex_lock(&mu);
        if ((int) qu.size() < 1) {
            pthread_cond_wait(&ec, &mu);
        }
        int tmp = qu.front();
        qu.pop();
        if ((int) qu.size() <= N) {
            pthread_cond_signal(&fc);
        }
        pthread_mutex_unlock(&mu);
        //sleep(1);
    }
}

int main()
{
    pthread_t tid;
    pthread_create(&tid, NULL, producer, NULL);
    for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) {
        pthread_t tid;
        pthread_create(&tid, NULL, consumer, NULL);
    }

    printf("all created\n");

    sleep(600);
}

When the qu.size() is geater than N, producer should stop producing, and when it’s less than N, producer resumes producing.

The weired problem is, if I remove the sleep(1); in consumer, the program will run into segmentation fault, if I keep sleep(1);, the program runs ok.

Why? Does it mean the consumer consumes too fast?

Answer 1

Spurious wakeup might be the reason. Your thread will proceed if the condition is true, but if your thread proceeds you can’t assume the condition is true.

Spurious wakeups from the pthread_cond_timedwait() or pthread_cond_wait() functions may occur. Since the return from pthread_cond_timedwait() or pthread_cond_wait() does not imply anything about the value of this predicate, the predicate should be re-evaluated upon such return.

So for example

if (qu.size() == 0) {
    pthread_cond_wait(&ec, &mu);
}

should become

while (qu.size() == 0) {
    pthread_cond_wait(&ec, &mu);
}