使用多线程的理由之二是线程间方便的通信机制。对不同进程来说,它们具有独立的数据空间,要进行数据的传递只能通过通信的方式进行,这种方式不仅费时,而且很不方便。线程则不然,由于同一进程下的线程之间共享数据空间,所以一个线程的数据可以直接为其它线程所用,这不仅快捷,而且方便。当然,数据的共享也带来其他一些问题,有的变量不能同时被两个线程所修改,有的子程序中声明为static的数据更有可能给多线程程序带来灾难性的打击,这些正是编写多线程程序时最需要注意的地方。
除了以上所说的优点外,不和进程比较,多线程程序作为一种多任务、并发的工作方式,当然有以下的优点:
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从函数调用上来说,进程创建使用fork()操作;线程创建使用clone()操作。Richard Stevens大师这样说过:
fork is expensive. Memory is copied from the parent to the child, all descriptors are duplicated in the child, and so on. Current implementations use a technique called copy-on-write, which avoids a copy of the parent's data space to the child until the child needs its own copy. But, regardless of this optimization, fork is expensive.
IPC is required to pass information between the parent and child after the fork. Passing information from the parent to the child before the fork is easy, since the child starts with a copy of the parent's data space and with a copy of all the parent's descriptors. But, returning information from the child to the parent takes more work.
Threads help with both problems. Threads are sometimes called lightweight processes since a thread is "lighter weight" than a process. That is, thread creation can be 10–100 times faster than process creation.
All threads within a process share the same global memory. This makes the sharing of information easy between the threads, but along with this simplicity comes the problem of synchronization.
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3、有关线程操作的函数
#include <pthread.h> int pthread_create(pthread_t *tid, const pthread_attr_t *attr, void *(*func) (void *), void *arg); int pthread_join (pthread_t tid, void ** status); pthread_t pthread_self (void); int pthread_detach (pthread_t tid); void pthread_exit (void *status);








