How to iterate over a container in a thread-safe way?

Question

I have a container (C++) on which I need to operate in two ways, from different threads: 1) Add and remove elements, and 2) iterate through its members. Clearly, remove element while iteration is happening = disaster. The code looks something like this:

class A
{
public:
   ...
   void AddItem(const T& item, int index) { /*Put item into my_stuff at index*/ }
   void RemoveItem(const T& item) { /*Take item out of m_stuff*/ }
   const list<T>& MyStuff() { return my_stuff; } //*Hate* this, but see class C
private:
   Mutex mutex; //Goes in the *Item methods, but is largely worthless in MyStuff()
   list<T> my_stuff; //Just as well a vector or deque
};
extern A a; //defined in the .cpp file

class B
{
   ...
   void SomeFunction() { ... a.RemoveItem(item); }
};

class C
{
   ...
   void IterateOverStuff()
   {
      const list<T>& my_stuff(a.MyStuff());
      for (list<T>::const_iterator it=my_stuff.begin(); it!=my_stuff.end(); ++it)
      {
          ...
      }
   }
};

Again, B::SomeFunction() and C::IterateOverStuff() are getting called asynchronously. What's a data structure I can use to ensure that during the iteration, my_stuff is 'protected' from add or remove operations?

Answer 1

IMHO it is a mistake to have a private mutex in a data structure class and then write the class methods so that the whole thing is thread safe no matter what the code that calls the methods does. The complexity that is required to do this completely and perfectly is way over the top.

The simpler way is to have a public ( or global ) mutex which the calling code is responsible for locking when it needs to access the data.

Here is my blog article on this subject.