In pthread, how to reliably pass signal to another thread?

Question

I'm trying to write a simple thread pool program in pthread. However, it seems that pthread_cond_signal doesn't block, which creates a problem. For example, let's say I have a "producer-consumer" program:

pthread_cond_t my_cond = PTHREAD_COND_INITIALIZER;
pthread_mutex_t my_cond_m = PTHREAD_MUTEX_INITIALIZER;

void * liberator(void * arg)
{
    // XXX make sure he is ready to be freed
    sleep(1);

    pthread_mutex_lock(&my_cond_m);
    pthread_cond_signal(&my_cond);
    pthread_mutex_unlock(&my_cond_m);

    return NULL;
}

int main()
{
    pthread_t t1;
    pthread_create(&t1, NULL, liberator, NULL);

    // XXX Don't take too long to get ready. Otherwise I'll miss 
    // the wake up call forever
    //sleep(3);

    pthread_mutex_lock(&my_cond_m);
    pthread_cond_wait(&my_cond, &my_cond_m);
    pthread_mutex_unlock(&my_cond_m);

    pthread_join(t1, NULL);

    return 0;
}

As described in the two XXX marks, if I take away the sleep calls, then main() may stall because it has missed the wake up call from liberator(). Of course, sleep isn't a very robust way to ensure that either.

In real life situation, this would be a worker thread telling the manager thread that it is ready for work, or the manager thread announcing that new work is available.

How would you do this reliably in pthread?

---

Elaboration

@Borealid's answer kind of works, but his explanation of the problem could be better. I suggest anyone looking at this question to read the discussion in the comments to understand what's going on.

In particular, I myself would amend his answer and code example like this, to make this clearer. (Since Borealid's original answer, while compiled and worked, confused me a lot)

// In main
pthread_mutex_lock(&my_cond_m);

// If the flag is not set, it means liberator has not 
// been run yet. I'll wait for him through pthread's signaling 
// mechanism

// If it _is_ set, it means liberator has been run. I'll simply 
// skip waiting since I've already synchronized. I don't need to 
// use pthread's signaling mechanism
if(!flag) pthread_cond_wait(&my_cond, &my_cond_m);

pthread_mutex_unlock(&my_cond_m);

// In liberator thread
pthread_mutex_lock(&my_cond_m);

// Signal anyone who's sleeping. If no one is sleeping yet, 
// they should check this flag which indicates I have already 
// sent the signal. This is needed because pthread's signals 
// is not like a message queue -- a sent signal is lost if 
// nobody's waiting for a condition when it's sent.
// You can think of this flag as a "persistent" signal
flag = 1;
pthread_cond_signal(&my_cond);
pthread_mutex_unlock(&my_cond_m);

Answer 1

Use a synchronization variable.

In main:

pthread_mutex_lock(&my_cond_m);
while (!flag) {
    pthread_cond_wait(&my_cond, &my_cond_m);
}
pthread_mutex_unlock(&my_cond_m);

In the thread:

pthread_mutex_lock(&my_cond_m);
flag = 1;
pthread_cond_broadcast(&my_cond);
pthread_mutex_unlock(&my_cond_m);

For a producer-consumer problem, this would be the consumer sleeping when the buffer is empty, and the producer sleeping when it is full. Remember to acquire the lock before accessing the global variable.