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Does any C library implement C11 threads for GNU/Linux?

There have been a lot of questions about C11 and C11 threading, but I don't see a definitive answer anywhere:

Does any C library implement the C11 threading interface usable on GNU/Linux-like? e.g., provide the "optional" <threads.h> and the thread support library like thrd_create(), from the C11 standard near p. 376.

Ideally, I'd like to find a library that is common-ish, open-source or free, for common/generic/multi architecture (e.g., GNU/Linux, x86_64, or portable-ish).

A few of the more helpful and relevant SO links:

  • this one and this one on glibc;
  • this one that's talking about the standard;
  • this one about clang;
  • this one about C11 in general and this one about Windows and other platforms;
  • a lot more about C++11 threading, but I am only interested in C11.

Some non-starter options for libraries:

  • glibc library does not; there is an open bug since 2012; there was GSoC proposal but seems not accepted;
  • LLVM/Clang project does not have a C library;
  • musl library does not; -- now does! See edit below and answer.
  • Newlib library supports threading (docs), but not using pthread nor C11 threads;
  • uClibc does not;
  • this comparison chart, which is dubious (e.g., I see no evidence in musl sources for C11 thread-local storage support);
  • Some various posts about BSD,
  • Pelles, which appears closed and Windows-only.

I am not interested in POSIX threads (many fine options), Windows, an IDE, nor C++11 (I know that GNU libstdc++ and LLVM/Clang libc++ provide C++11's std::thread, which uses -pthread)

Thanks!


(re-)Edit: question re-opened, so migrated content to answer to clean up.

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hoc_age Avatar asked Jul 03 '14 15:07

hoc_age


6 Answers

musl now (as of Sep 2014-ish) implements C11 threads!

According to this recent musl mailing list post and other conversation on that list in Jul-Sep 2014, it appears that the musl library now (as of 2014-09-07) implements the C11 threads interface, though the comparison chart; does not as of this writing reflect this.

Since this question is re-opened, I moved this content to a proper answer.

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hoc_age Avatar answered Nov 07 '22 18:11

hoc_age


Finally GNU LIBC 2.28 supports C11 ISO Threads.

I assume Archlinux, Gentoo and Suse Tumbleweed will support it quickly. Later in this year Fedora and Ubuntu and the others in 2019 or later.

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Peter Avatar answered Nov 07 '22 18:11

Peter


https://github.com/jtsiomb/c11threads is a "Trivial C11 threads.h implementation over POSIX threads." contained in a single header.


Hmmm, it looks like GCC 4.9.0 actually provides substantial support for C11 standards (at least since the web docs were modified on around the end of June, 2014.

From https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.9.0/gcc/Standards.html

A fourth version of the C standard, known as C11, was published in 2011 as ISO/IEC 9899:2011. GCC has substantially complete support for this standard, enabled with -std=c11 or -std=iso9899:2011. (While in development, drafts of this standard version were referred to as C1X.)

And from https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.9/changes.html

ISO C11 atomics (the _Atomic type specifier and qualifier and the header) are now supported. ISO C11 generic selections (_Generic keyword) are now supported. ISO C11 thread-local storage (_Thread_local, similar to GNU C __thread) is now supported. ISO C11 support is now at a similar level of completeness to ISO C99 support: substantially complete modulo bugs, extended identifiers (supported except for corner cases when -fextended-identifiers is used), floating-point issues (mainly but not entirely relating to optional C99 features from Annexes F and G) and the optional Annexes K (Bounds-checking interfaces) and L (Analyzability). A new C extension __auto_type provides a subset of the functionality of C++11 auto in GNU C.

From that, it is hard to tell what all of that will really mean when the pedal hits the metal. An upgrade on an environment to the latest GCC 4.9.0 release and a few simple driver programs would confirm how much or how little it is being implemented.

Hope it helps.

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luis.espinal Avatar answered Nov 07 '22 17:11

luis.espinal


FreeBSD provides threads.h since FreeBSD 10.0 The program needs to be linked against libstdsthreads.

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M.K. aka Grisu Avatar answered Nov 07 '22 18:11

M.K. aka Grisu


PDCLib (the Public Domain C standard library) includes AFAICT full support for threads.h, and it's not a wrapper around pthreads.

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MarcusJ Avatar answered Nov 07 '22 18:11

MarcusJ