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PROLOG

       This  manual  page  is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux implementation of
       this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux  manual  page  for  details  of
       Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME

       pthread_mutexattr_destroy,  pthread_mutexattr_init  —  destroy  and  initialize  the mutex
       attributes object

SYNOPSIS

       #include <pthread.h>

       int pthread_mutexattr_destroy(pthread_mutexattr_t *attr);
       int pthread_mutexattr_init(pthread_mutexattr_t *attr);

DESCRIPTION

       The pthread_mutexattr_destroy() function shall destroy  a  mutex  attributes  object;  the
       object    becomes,    in    effect,    uninitialized.    An   implementation   may   cause
       pthread_mutexattr_destroy() to set the object referenced by attr to an invalid value.

       A destroyed attr attributes object can be  reinitialized  using  pthread_mutexattr_init();
       the results of otherwise referencing the object after it has been destroyed are undefined.

       The pthread_mutexattr_init() function shall initialize a mutex attributes object attr with
       the default value for all of the attributes defined by the implementation.

       Results  are  undefined  if  pthread_mutexattr_init()  is  called  specifying  an  already
       initialized attr attributes object.

       After  a  mutex  attributes  object  has  been used to initialize one or more mutexes, any
       function affecting the attributes object (including  destruction)  shall  not  affect  any
       previously initialized mutexes.

       The   behavior   is   undefined   if   the   value  specified  by  the  attr  argument  to
       pthread_mutexattr_destroy() does not refer to an initialized mutex attributes object.

RETURN VALUE

       Upon successful completion, pthread_mutexattr_destroy() and pthread_mutexattr_init() shall
       return zero; otherwise, an error number shall be returned to indicate the error.

ERRORS

       The pthread_mutexattr_init() function shall fail if:

       ENOMEM Insufficient memory exists to initialize the mutex attributes object.

       These functions shall not return an error code of [EINTR].

       The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES

       None.

APPLICATION USAGE

       None.

RATIONALE

       If   an  implementation  detects  that  the  value  specified  by  the  attr  argument  to
       pthread_mutexattr_destroy() does not refer to an initialized mutex attributes  object,  it
       is recommended that the function should fail and report an [EINVAL] error.

       See  pthread_attr_destroy()  for  a  general explanation of attributes. Attributes objects
       allow implementations to experiment with useful extensions and permit  extension  of  this
       volume  of  POSIX.1‐2008  without  changing the existing functions. Thus, they provide for
       future extensibility  of  this  volume  of  POSIX.1‐2008  and  reduce  the  temptation  to
       standardize prematurely on semantics that are not yet widely implemented or understood.

       Examples  of  possible additional mutex attributes that have been discussed are spin_only,
       limited_spin, no_spin, recursive, and metered.  (To explain  what  the  latter  attributes
       might  mean:  recursive  mutexes would allow for multiple re-locking by the current owner;
       metered mutexes would transparently keep records of queue length, wait time, and  so  on.)
       Since  there  is  not  yet wide agreement on the usefulness of these resulting from shared
       implementation and usage experience,  they  are  not  yet  specified  in  this  volume  of
       POSIX.1‐2008.  Mutex  attributes  objects,  however,  make  it  possible to test out these
       concepts for possible standardization at a later time.

   Mutex Attributes and Performance
       Care has been taken to ensure that the default values of the mutex  attributes  have  been
       defined  such  that  mutexes initialized with the defaults have simple enough semantics so
       that the locking and  unlocking  can  be  done  with  the  equivalent  of  a  test-and-set
       instruction (plus possibly a few other basic instructions).

       There is at least one implementation method that can be used to reduce the cost of testing
       at lock-time if a mutex has non-default attributes. One such method that an implementation
       can employ (and this can be made fully transparent to fully conforming POSIX applications)
       is to secretly pre-lock any mutexes that are initialized to  non-default  attributes.  Any
       later  attempt  to  lock  such  a  mutex causes the implementation to branch to the ``slow
       path'' as if the mutex were unavailable; then, on the slow path, the implementation can do
       the  ``real  work''  to  lock a non-default mutex. The underlying unlock operation is more
       complicated since the implementation never really wants to release the  pre-lock  on  this
       kind  of  mutex.  This  illustrates  that, depending on the hardware, there may be certain
       optimizations that can be used so that whatever mutex  attributes  are  considered  ``most
       frequently used'' can be processed most efficiently.

   Process Shared Memory and Synchronization
       The  existence  of  memory  mapping  functions in this volume of POSIX.1‐2008 leads to the
       possibility that an application may allocate the synchronization objects from this section
       in  memory  that  is accessed by multiple processes (and therefore, by threads of multiple
       processes).

       In order to permit such usage, while at the same time keeping the  usual  case  (that  is,
       usage within a single process) efficient, a process-shared option has been defined.

       If  an  implementation supports the _POSIX_THREAD_PROCESS_SHARED option, then the process-
       shared attribute can be used to indicate  that  mutexes  or  condition  variables  may  be
       accessed by threads of multiple processes.

       The  default  setting  of  PTHREAD_PROCESS_PRIVATE  has been chosen for the process-shared
       attribute so that the most efficient forms of these synchronization objects are created by
       default.

       Synchronization  variables  that are initialized with the PTHREAD_PROCESS_PRIVATE process-
       shared attribute may only be operated on by threads in the process that initialized  them.
       Synchronization  variables  that  are initialized with the PTHREAD_PROCESS_SHARED process-
       shared attribute may be operated on by any thread in any process that has access to it. In
       particular, these processes may exist beyond the lifetime of the initializing process. For
       example, the following code implements a simple counting semaphore in a mapped  file  that
       may be used by many processes.

           /* sem.h */
           struct semaphore {
               pthread_mutex_t lock;
               pthread_cond_t nonzero;
               unsigned count;
           };
           typedef struct semaphore semaphore_t;

           semaphore_t *semaphore_create(char *semaphore_name);
           semaphore_t *semaphore_open(char *semaphore_name);
           void semaphore_post(semaphore_t *semap);
           void semaphore_wait(semaphore_t *semap);
           void semaphore_close(semaphore_t *semap);

           /* sem.c */
           #include <sys/types.h>
           #include <sys/stat.h>
           #include <sys/mman.h>
           #include <fcntl.h>
           #include <pthread.h>
           #include "sem.h"

           semaphore_t *
           semaphore_create(char *semaphore_name)
           {
           int fd;
               semaphore_t *semap;
               pthread_mutexattr_t psharedm;
               pthread_condattr_t psharedc;

               fd = open(semaphore_name, O_RDWR | O_CREAT | O_EXCL, 0666);
               if (fd < 0)
                   return (NULL);
               (void) ftruncate(fd, sizeof(semaphore_t));
               (void) pthread_mutexattr_init(&psharedm);
               (void) pthread_mutexattr_setpshared(&psharedm,
                   PTHREAD_PROCESS_SHARED);
               (void) pthread_condattr_init(&psharedc);
               (void) pthread_condattr_setpshared(&psharedc,
                   PTHREAD_PROCESS_SHARED);
               semap = (semaphore_t *) mmap(NULL, sizeof(semaphore_t),
                       PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED,
                       fd, 0);
               close (fd);
               (void) pthread_mutex_init(&semap->lock, &psharedm);
               (void) pthread_cond_init(&semap->nonzero, &psharedc);
               semap->count = 0;
               return (semap);
           }

           semaphore_t *
           semaphore_open(char *semaphore_name)
           {
               int fd;
               semaphore_t *semap;

               fd = open(semaphore_name, O_RDWR, 0666);
               if (fd < 0)
                   return (NULL);
               semap = (semaphore_t *) mmap(NULL, sizeof(semaphore_t),
                       PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED,
                       fd, 0);
               close (fd);
               return (semap);
           }

           void
           semaphore_post(semaphore_t *semap)
           {
               pthread_mutex_lock(&semap->lock);
               if (semap->count == 0)
                   pthread_cond_signal(&semapx->nonzero);
               semap->count++;
               pthread_mutex_unlock(&semap->lock);
           }

           void
           semaphore_wait(semaphore_t *semap)
           {
               pthread_mutex_lock(&semap->lock);
               while (semap->count == 0)
                   pthread_cond_wait(&semap->nonzero, &semap->lock);
               semap->count--;
               pthread_mutex_unlock(&semap->lock);
           }

           void
           semaphore_close(semaphore_t *semap)
           {
               munmap((void *) semap, sizeof(semaphore_t));
           }

       The  following  code  is  for  three  separate  processes that create, post, and wait on a
       semaphore in the file /tmp/semaphore.  Once  the  file  is  created,  the  post  and  wait
       programs  increment  and decrement the counting semaphore (waiting and waking as required)
       even though they did not initialize the semaphore.

           /* create.c */
           #include "pthread.h"
           #include "sem.h"

           int
           main()
           {
               semaphore_t *semap;

               semap = semaphore_create("/tmp/semaphore");
               if (semap == NULL)
                   exit(1);
               semaphore_close(semap);
               return (0);
           }

           /* post */
           #include "pthread.h"
           #include "sem.h"

           int
           main()
           {
               semaphore_t *semap;

               semap = semaphore_open("/tmp/semaphore");
               if (semap == NULL)
                   exit(1);
               semaphore_post(semap);
               semaphore_close(semap);
               return (0);
           }

           /* wait */
           #include "pthread.h"
           #include "sem.h"

           int
           main()
           {
               semaphore_t *semap;

               semap = semaphore_open("/tmp/semaphore");
               if (semap == NULL)
                   exit(1);
               semaphore_wait(semap);
               semaphore_close(semap);
               return (0);
           }

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       pthread_cond_destroy(), pthread_create(), pthread_mutex_destroy()

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, <pthread.h>

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and  reproduced  in  electronic  form  from  IEEE  Std
       1003.1,  2013  Edition,  Standard  for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System
       Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013  by  the
       Institute  of  Electrical  and  Electronics  Engineers,  Inc and The Open Group.  (This is
       POSIX.1-2008 with the  2013  Technical  Corrigendum  1  applied.)  In  the  event  of  any
       discrepancy  between  this  version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the
       original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The  original  Standard
       can be obtained online at http://www.unix.org/online.html .

       Any  typographical  or  formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have
       been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page  format.  To  report
       such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .