Summary

This chapter was our first step towards writing multithreaded programs in C using the POSIX threading library. As part of this chapter:

• We went through the basics of the POSIX threading library, which is the main tool for writing multithreaded applications in POSIX-compliant systems.
• We explored the various properties of threads and their memory structure.
• We gave some insight about the available mechanisms for threads to communicate and share a state.
• We explained that how the memory regions available to all threads within the same process are the best way to share data and communicate.
• We talked about the kernel threads and the user-level threads and how they differ.
• We explained the joinable and detached threads and how they differ from the execution point of view.
• We demonstrated how to use the pthread_create and pthread_join functions and what arguments they receive.
• Examples of a race condition and a data race were demonstrated using...