[PATCH wayland] client: update documentation about threading

Marek Chalupa mchqwerty at gmail.com
Fri Nov 21 02:12:35 PST 2014


Remove out-dated documentation and add few more words
about this topic.

Signed-off-by: Marek Chalupa <mchqwerty at gmail.com>
---
 src/wayland-client.c | 106 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------
 1 file changed, 87 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/wayland-client.c b/src/wayland-client.c
index 41c49e9..b1a1fa0 100644
--- a/src/wayland-client.c
+++ b/src/wayland-client.c
@@ -909,6 +909,12 @@ static const struct wl_callback_listener sync_listener = {
  * Blocks until the server process all currently issued requests and
  * sends out pending events on the event queue.
  *
+ * \note This function uses wl_display_dispatch_queue() internally. If you
+ * are using wl_display_read_events() from more threads, don't use this function
+ * (or make sure that calling wl_display_roundtrip_queue() doesn't interfere
+ * with calling wl_display_prepare_read() and wl_display_read_events())
+ *
+ * \sa wl_display_roundtrip()
  * \memberof wl_display
  */
 WL_EXPORT int
@@ -940,6 +946,11 @@ wl_display_roundtrip_queue(struct wl_display *display, struct wl_event_queue *qu
  * Blocks until the server process all currently issued requests and
  * sends out pending events on the default event queue.
  *
+ * \note This function uses wl_display_dispatch_queue() internally. If you
+ * are using wl_display_read_events() from more threads, don't use this function
+ * (or make sure that calling wl_display_roundtrip() doesn't interfere
+ * with calling wl_display_prepare_read() and wl_display_read_events())
+ *
  * \memberof wl_display
  */
 WL_EXPORT int
@@ -1211,14 +1222,55 @@ cancel_read(struct wl_display *display)
  *
  * This will read events from the file descriptor for the display.
  * This function does not dispatch events, it only reads and queues
- * events into their corresponding event queues.  If no data is
+ * events into their corresponding event queues. If no data is
  * avilable on the file descriptor, wl_display_read_events() returns
- * immediately.  To dispatch events that may have been queued, call
- * wl_display_dispatch_pending() or
- * wl_display_dispatch_queue_pending().
+ * immediately. To dispatch events that may have been queued, call
+ * wl_display_dispatch_pending() or wl_display_dispatch_queue_pending().
  *
  * Before calling this function, wl_display_prepare_read() must be
- * called first.
+ * called first. When running in more threads (which is the usual
+ * case, since we'd use wl_display_dispatch() otherwise), every thread
+ * must call wl_display_prepare_read() before calling this function.
+ *
+ * After calling wl_display_prepare_read() there can be some extra code
+ * before calling wl_display_read_events(), for example poll() or alike.
+ * Example of code in a thread:
+ *
+ * \code
+ *
+ *   while (wl_display_prepare_read(display) < 0)
+ *           wl_display_dispatch_pending(display);
+ *   wl_display_flush(display);
+ *
+ *   ... some code ...
+ *
+ *   fds[0].fd = wl_display_get_fd(display);
+ *   fds[0].event = POLLIN | POLLHUP | POLLERR;
+ *   poll(fds, 1, -1);
+ *
+ *   if (!everything_ok()) {
+ *	wl_display_cancel_read(display);
+ *	handle_error();
+ *   }
+ *
+ *   if (wl_display_read_events(display) < 0)
+ *	handle_error();
+ *
+ *   ...
+ * \endcode
+ *
+ * The code should be as short as possible since other threads may
+ * get sleeping until all threads called wl_display_read_events()
+ * or wl_display_cancel_read().
+ *
+ * This function must not be called simultaneously with wl_display_dispatch().
+ * It may lead to deadlock. If programmer wants, for some reason, use
+ * wl_display_dispatch() in one thread and wl_display_read_events() in another,
+ * extra care must be taken to serialize these calls, i. e. use mutexes or
+ * similar.
+ *
+ * \sa wl_display_prepare_read(), wl_display_cancel_read(),
+ * wl_display_dispatch_pending(), wl_display_dispatch()
  *
  * \memberof wl_display
  */
@@ -1296,17 +1348,17 @@ wl_display_prepare_read_queue(struct wl_display *display,
 	return ret;
 }
 
-/** Prepare to read events after polling file descriptor
+/** Prepare to read events from the display's file descriptor
  *
  * \param display The display context object
  * \return 0 on success or -1 if event queue was not empty
  *
  * This function must be called before reading from the file
- * descriptor using wl_display_read_events().  Calling
- * wl_display_prepare_read() announces the calling threads intention
+ * descriptor using wl_display_read_events(). Calling
+ * wl_display_prepare_read() announces the calling thread's intention
  * to read and ensures that until the thread is ready to read and
  * calls wl_display_read_events(), no other thread will read from the
- * file descriptor.  This only succeeds if the event queue is empty
+ * file descriptor. This only succeeds if the event queue is empty
  * though, and if there are undispatched events in the queue, -1 is
  * returned and errno set to EAGAIN.
  *
@@ -1314,6 +1366,13 @@ wl_display_prepare_read_queue(struct wl_display *display,
  * either call wl_display_read_events() when it's ready or cancel the
  * read intention by calling wl_display_cancel_read().
  *
+ * This function doesn't acquire exclusive access to the display's fd.
+ * It only registers that the thread calling this function has intention to
+ * read from fd. When all registered readers call wl_display_read_events(),
+ * only one (at random) eventually reads and queues the events and the
+ * others are sleeping meanwhile. This way we avoid races and still
+ * can read from more threads.
+ *
  * Use this function before polling on the display fd or to integrate
  * the fd into a toolkit event loop in a race-free way.  Typically, a
  * toolkit will call wl_display_dispatch_pending() before sleeping, to
@@ -1350,9 +1409,10 @@ wl_display_prepare_read_queue(struct wl_display *display,
  * Here we call wl_display_prepare_read(), which ensures that between
  * returning from that call and eventually calling
  * wl_display_read_events(), no other thread will read from the fd and
- * queue events in our queue.  If the call to
- * wl_display_prepare_read() fails, we dispatch the pending events and
- * try again until we're successful.
+ * queue events in our queue. If the call to wl_display_prepare_read() fails,
+ * we dispatch the pending events and try again until we're successful.
+ *
+ * \sa wl_display_cancel_read(), wl_display_read_events()
  *
  * \memberof wl_display
  */
@@ -1362,13 +1422,15 @@ wl_display_prepare_read(struct wl_display *display)
 	return wl_display_prepare_read_queue(display, &display->default_queue);
 }
 
-/** Release exclusive access to display file descriptor
+/** Cancel read intention on display's fd
  *
  * \param display The display context object
  *
- * This releases the exclusive access.  Useful for canceling the lock
- * when a timed out poll returns fd not readable and we're not going
- * to read from the fd anytime soon.
+ * After a thread successfully called wl_display_preapare_read() it must
+ * either call wl_display_read_events() or wl_display_cancel_read().
+ * If the threads do not follow this rule it will lead to deadlock.
+ *
+ * \sa wl_display_prepare_read(), wl_display_read_events()
  *
  * \memberof wl_display
  */
@@ -1396,6 +1458,9 @@ wl_display_cancel_read(struct wl_display *display)
  * threads this will block until the main thread queues events on the queue
  * passed as argument.
  *
+ * For behaviour in multi-threaded environment see wl_display_read_events()
+ * and wl_display_prepare_read()
+ *
  * \memberof wl_display
  */
 WL_EXPORT int
@@ -1502,10 +1567,13 @@ wl_display_dispatch_queue_pending(struct wl_display *display,
  * or not. For dispatching main queue events without blocking, see \ref
  * wl_display_dispatch_pending().
  *
- * \note Calling this will release the display file descriptor if this
- * thread acquired it using wl_display_acquire_fd().
+ * In multi-threaded environment, programmer may want to use
+ * wl_display_read_events(). However, use of wl_display_read_events()
+ * must not be mixed with wl_display_dispatch(). See wl_display_read_events()
+ * and wl_display_prepare_read() for more details.
  *
- * \sa wl_display_dispatch_pending(), wl_display_dispatch_queue()
+ * \sa wl_display_dispatch_pending(), wl_display_dispatch_queue(),
+ * wl_display_read_events()
  *
  * \memberof wl_display
  */
-- 
2.1.0



More information about the wayland-devel mailing list