The Perl Toolchain Summit needs more sponsors. If your company depends on Perl, please support this very important event.

NAME

SDL2::thread - SDL Thread Management Routines

SYNOPSIS

    use SDL2 qw[:thread];

    # Very simple thread - counts 0 to 9 delaying 50ms between increments
    sub TestThread ($ptr) {
        my $cnt;
        for ( $cnt = 0; $cnt < 10; ++$cnt ) {
            printf( "Thread counter: %d\n", $cnt );
            SDL_Delay(50);
        }
        return $cnt;
    }
    #
    printf("Simple SDL_CreateThread test:\n");

    # Simply create a thread
    my $thread = SDL_CreateThread( \&TestThread, 'TestThread', () );
    if ( !defined $thread ) {
        printf( "SDL_CreateThread failed: %s\n", SDL_GetError() );
    }
    else {
        SDL_WaitThread( $thread, \my $threadReturnValue );
        printf( "Thread returned value: %d\n", $threadReturnValue );
    }

DESCRIPTION

This package contains functions for system independent thread management routines.

NOTE: You should not expect to be able to create a window, render, or receive events on any thread other than the main one.

Functions

These may be imported by name or with the :thread tag.

SDL_CreateThread( ... )

Create a new thread with a default stack size.

This is equivalent to calling:

        SDL_CreateThreadWithStackSize($fn, $name, 0, $data);

Expected parameters include:

fn - the SDL_ThreadFunction function to call in the new thread
name - the name of the thread
data - a pointer that is passed to fn

Returns an opaque pointer to the new thread object on success, undef if the new thread could not be created; call SDL_GetError( ) for more information.

SDL_CreateThreadWithStackSize( ... )

Create a new thread with a specific stack size.

SDL makes an attempt to report name to the system, so that debuggers can display it. Not all platforms support this.

Thread naming is a little complicated: Most systems have very small limits for the string length (Haiku has 32 bytes, Linux currently has 16, Visual C++ 6.0 has _nine_!), and possibly other arbitrary rules. You'll have to see what happens with your system's debugger. The name should be UTF-8 (but using the naming limits of C identifiers is a better bet). There are no requirements for thread naming conventions, so long as the string is null-terminated UTF-8, but these guidelines are helpful in choosing a name:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/149932/naming-conventions-for-threads

If a system imposes requirements, SDL will try to munge the string for it (truncate, etc), but the original string contents will be available from SDL_GetThreadName( ... ).

The size (in bytes) of the new stack can be specified. Zero means "use the system default" which might be wildly different between platforms. x86 Linux generally defaults to eight megabytes, an embedded device might be a few kilobytes instead. You generally need to specify a stack that is a multiple of the system's page size (in many cases, this is 4 kilobytes, but check your system documentation).

In SDL 2.1, stack size will be folded into the original SDL_CreateThread function, but for backwards compatibility, this is currently a separate function.

Expected parameters include:

fn - the SDL_ThreadFunction function to call in the new thread
name - the name of the thread
stacksize - the size, in bytes, to allocate for the new thread stack
data - a pointer that is passed to fn

Returns an opaque pointer to the new thread object on success, undef if the new thread could not be created; call SDL_GetError( ) for more information.

SDL_GetThreadName( ... )

Get the thread name as it was specified in SDL_CreateThread( ... ).

This is internal memory, not to be freed by the caller, and remains valid until the specified thread is cleaned up by SDL_WaitThread( ... ).

Expected parameters include:

thread - the thread to query

Returns a pointer to a UTF-8 string that names the specified thread, or undef if it doesn't have a name.

SDL_ThreadID( )

Get the thread identifier for the current thread.

This thread identifier is as reported by the underlying operating system. If SDL is running on a platform that does not support threads the return value will always be zero.

This function also returns a valid thread ID when called from the main thread.

Returns the ID of the current thread.

SDL_GetThreadID( ... )

Get the thread identifier for the specified thread.

This thread identifier is as reported by the underlying operating system. If SDL is running on a platform that does not support threads the return value will always be zero.

Expected parameters include:

thread - the thread to query

Returns the ID of the specified thread, or the ID of the current thread if thread is undef.

SDL_SetThreadPriority( ... )

Set the priority for the current thread.

Note that some platforms will not let you alter the priority (or at least, promote the thread to a higher priority) at all, and some require you to be an administrator account. Be prepared for this to fail.

Expected parameters include:

priority the SDL_ThreadPriority to set

Returns 0 on success or a negative error code on failure; call SDL_GetError( ) for more information.

SDL_WaitThread( ... )

Wait for a thread to finish.

Threads that haven't been detached will remain (as a "zombie") until this function cleans them up. Not doing so is a resource leak.

Once a thread has been cleaned up through this function, the SDL_Thread that references it becomes invalid and should not be referenced again. As such, only one thread may call SDL_WaitThread( ... ) on another.

The return code for the thread function is placed in the area pointed to by status, if status is not undef.

You may not wait on a thread that has been used in a call to SDL_WaitThread( ... )

SDL_DetachThread( ... ). Use either that function or this one, but not both, or behavior is undefined.

It is safe to pass a undef thread to this function; it is a no-op.

Note that the thread pointer is freed by this function and is not valid afterward.

Expected parameters include:

thread - the SDL2::Thread pointer that was returned from the SDL_CreateThread( ... ) call that started this thread
status - pointer to an integer that will receive the value returned from the thread function by its 'return', or undef to not receive such value back

SDL_DetachThread( ... )

Let a thread clean up on exit without intervention.

A thread may be "detached" to signify that it should not remain until another thread has called SDL_WaitThread() on it. Detaching a thread is useful for long-running threads that nothing needs to synchronize with or further manage. When a detached thread is done, it simply goes away.

There is no way to recover the return code of a detached thread. If you need this, don't detach the thread and instead use SDL_WaitThread().

Once a thread is detached, you should usually assume the SDL_Thread isn't safe to reference again, as it will become invalid immediately upon the detached thread's exit, instead of remaining until someone has called SDL_WaitThread( ... ) to finally clean it up. As such, don't detach the same thread more than once.

If a thread has already exited when passed to SDL_DetachThread( ... ), it will stop waiting for a call to SDL_WaitThread( ... ) and clean up immediately. It is not safe to detach a thread that might be used with SDL_WaitThread( ... ).

You may not call SDL_WaitThread( ... ) on a thread that has been detached. Use either that function or this one, but not both, or behavior is undefined.

It is safe to pass undef to this function; it is a no-op.

Expected parameters include:

thread the SDL2::Thread pointer that was returned from the SDL_CreateThread( ... ) call that started this thread

SDL_TLSCreate( )

Create a piece of thread-local storage.

This creates an identifier that is globally visible to all threads but refers to data that is thread-specific.

Returns the newly created thread local storage identifier or 0 on error.

SDL_TLSGet( ... )

Get the current thread's value associated with a thread local storage ID.

Expected parameters include:

id - the thread local storage ID

Returns the value associated with the ID for the current thread or undef if no value has been set; call SDL_GetError( ) for more information.

SDL_TLSSet( ... )

Set the current thread's value associated with a thread local storage ID.

The function prototype for destructor is:

        sub ($value);

where its parameter value is what was passed as value to SDL_TLSSet( ... ). The return value is ignored.

Expected parameters include:

id - the thread local storage ID
value - the value to associate with the ID for the current thread
destructor - a function called when the thread exits, to free the value

Returns 0 on success or a negative error code on failure; call SDL_GetError( ) for more information.

SDL_TLSCleanup( )

Cleanup all TLS data for this thread.

Defined Values, Types, and Enumerations

Values and types may be imported by name or with the :thread tag. Enumerations may be imported with their given tags.

SDL_threadID

The SDL thread ID.

SDL_TLSID

Thread local storage ID, 0 is the invalid ID.

SDL_ThreadPriority

The SDL thread priority.

SDL will make system changes as necessary in order to apply the thread priority. Code which attempts to control thread state related to priority should be aware that calling SDL_SetThreadPriority( ... ) may alter such state. SDL_HINT_THREAD_PRIORITY_POLICY can be used to control aspects of this behavior.

On many systems you require special privileges to set high or time critical priority.

SDL_THREAD_PRIORITY_LOW
SDL_THREAD_PRIORITY_NORMAL
SDL_THREAD_PRIORITY_HIGH
SDL_THREAD_PRIORITY_TIME_CRITICAL

SDL_ThreadFunction

The function passed to SDL_CreateThread( ... ).

Parameters to expect include:

data - what was passed as data to SDL_CreateThread( ... )

Return a value that can be reported through SDL_WaitThread( ... ).

LICENSE

Copyright (C) Sanko Robinson.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms found in the Artistic License 2. Other copyrights, terms, and conditions may apply to data transmitted through this module.

AUTHOR

Sanko Robinson <sanko@cpan.org>