Chapter 12 – Posix Threads

Publisher Summary This chapter deals with Posix threads. Posix is an acronym that stands for portable operating system interface with an X thrown in for good measure. Posix represents a collection of standards defining various aspects of a portable operating system based on UNIX. These standards are maintained jointly by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the International Standards Organization (ISO). Linux conforms to Posix. Posix provides an open-ended mechanism for extending the API through the use of attribute objects. For each type of Pthreads object there is a corresponding attribute object. This attribute object is an extended argument list to the related object create or initialize function. The chapter discusses Pthreads in user space, and debugging of multithreaded programs. Pthreads in user space helps in debugging the program with data display debugger (DDD)/GDB. The chapter closes by describing message queues, which are an element of the overall Posix standard defined as part of the optional real-time extensions.