How to create threads in VC++

Question

• I tend to use POSIX Threads, when programming in C, under Linux.

• Without MFC

Question:

How would I then create threads in VC++?

Find more information on threads under win32?

Edit:

• Brief illustrations

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Regards

Answer 1

if you're looking for a platform-independent method, use boost

there's also beginthread() and beginthreadex() functions. Both seem to be supplemental to Win32 API, in a sense that in many use cases, you still need to call some Win32 functions (such as CloseHandle for beginthreadex). So, if you don't care that much about platform compatibility, you might as well cut the foreplay and use CreateThread().

Win32 thread handling is documented here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms684852(VS.85).aspx

[edit1] example:

DWORD WINAPI MyThreadProc( void* pContext )
{
    return 0;
}

HANDLE h = CreateThread( NULL, 0, MyThreadProc, this, 0L, NULL );
WaitForSingleObject(h, TIME); // wait for thread to exit, TIME is a DWORD in milliseconds

[edit2] CRT & CreateThread():

per MSDN:

A thread in an executable that calls the C run-time library (CRT) should use the _beginthreadex and _endthreadex functions for thread management rather than CreateThread and ExitThread; this requires the use of the multi-threaded version of the CRT. If a thread created using CreateThread calls the CRT, the CRT may terminate the process in low-memory conditions.

Answer 2

You should not use the raw Win32 CreateThread() API.

Use the C runtime's _beginthreadex() so the runtime has an opportunity to set up its own thread support.