Mixing C++11 std::thread and C system threads (ie pthreads)

Question

I am writing a multithreaded C++ program and wish to use a multithreaded C library.
This library expects me to use the native system methods to create it some worker threads and pass control to its run() function using code such as this:

void system_specific_thread_init();
#ifdef _WIN32
    DWORD WINAPI system_specific_thread_run( LPVOID unused )
    {
        library_run();
        return 0;
    }

    void system_specific_thread_init()
    {
        Createthread(NULL, 0, system_specific_thread_run, NULL, 0, NULL);
    }
#else
    void* system_specific_thread_run(void *unused)
    {
        library_run();
        return NULL;
    }

    void system_specific_thread_init()
    {
        pthread_t id;
        pthread_create(&id, NULL, system_specific_thread_run, NULL);
    }
#endif
system_specific_thread_init();

after which it will use the relevant native system mutex methods to other native system threads to call its functions while getting on with is own work.

However, I am using the C++11 <thread> library to create and manage all my threads. I wish to create the worker thread(s) with std::thread(library_run) and call the library functions from other such threads.

Is it safe to do this, or will the DS9K cause demons to fly out of my nose?

Answer 1

C++11 threads may or may not have a member function named native_handle(); it's implementation-defined whether this exists. If it exists, it returns an object of type native_handle_type; it's implementation-defined what an object of this type can be used for. So read your documentation.