A launched thread can be passed an argument, similar to any function. And the thread can return a value, just like any function. But while the thread runs, options for communications are rather limited.
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If you’re like me, you’re probably more familiar with the concept of pipes at the command prompt than in a programming environment. Or maybe you don’t care either way. Regardless, both types of pipe are similar forms of communications, but programming pipes seem specifically weird to me.
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A thread ends in one of three ways: natural causes, an early exit, or sudden death. Yes, it’s exciting, but no more than any aspect of programming.
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Threads in your code go off and do their own thing, running independently from other parts of the code. Still, the thread is established as a function in your source code file. Like any function, it can leave early.
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In last week’s Lesson, a program spawned a single thread. This thread runs at the same time as the main program, interrupting text input (if you let it). Such fun! But a multithreaded program isn’t limited to running just two threads. Your code can spawn multiple threads, each running simultaneously.
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Better than forking — especially grandchild forking — is to use threads. These program chunks are more manageable than forking and they don’t recreate the entire program (process). Still, threads aren’t without their quirks. Further, they’re available only to the POSIX standard. Sorry, Windows.
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I wrote about forking a while back, in June 2015. The fork splits a program into two processes, each capable of handling different tasks simultaneously. The power behind this trick is the fork() function.
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The challenge for this month’s Exercise is to split a decimal value into its integer and fractional portions. But what if you need the fractional portion as a string?
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It was weird when I first saw it: A conditional expression used to determine a value. It sounds odd, but it works.
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Properly formed strings in C are terminated with the null character, \0. Accept it or die!
However . . .
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