Mutex Class Reference

#include <Mutex.h>

Inheritance diagram for Mutex:

Collaboration diagram for Mutex:

Public Member Functions
	Mutex ()
virtual	~Mutex ()
void	lock ()
bool	tryLock ()
void	unlock ()
Public Member Functions inherited from RefCounted
	RefCounted ()
virtual	~RefCounted ()
void	ref ()
void	deref ()

Detailed Description

Manages mutual exclusivity

In a single-threaded program, you know (with a few exceptions) that when you read from a variable that it will have the same value until you change it. The same is true in a multi-threaded program, except that the other thread might change it. Without some kind of a locking mechanism, you could have two threads operating on the same data at the same time, which can cause very bad problems unless you plan for it.

This class implements a data lock that can be used to make sure that no one else is currently trying to use the data you want to change. It does not care what data it's protecting, nor does it have any link to it. It's purely a locking system to let threads know what other threads are doing.

At this point, this class is mainly a wrapper for GLib's GStaticRecMutex class, but implements it in friendly terms that are a bit shorter than using it directly. It also allows for portability to other mutex systems.

Constructor & Destructor Documentation

Mutex::Mutex

(

)

Constructs a new mutex

Constructs and initializes a new mutex to a state of "nobody's using this resource right now".

Mutex::~Mutex ( )

virtual

Cleans up the mutex

Cleans up all resources used by the mutex itself. Declared as virtual so if a class derives from it, the correct derived class's destructor is called, keeping memory clean.

Member Function Documentation

void Mutex::lock

(

)

Lock the mutex to prevent locking by other threads

Try to place a lock on the mutex to signal other mutex users that it's being used. If another thread has already locked the mutex, wait until they unlock it before grabbing the lock and returning.

bool Mutex::tryLock

(

)

Try to lock the mutex unless another thread has already locked it

Attempt locking of this mutex. If another thread already has it locked, that's fine - this method will just return FALSE. Otherwise, if no other threads have a lock, it places a new lock on this mutex and returns TRUE to indicate that the caller now has exclusive access to whatever this mutex is supposed to protect.

Returns

FALSE if another thread already has this mutex locked, TRUE if a new lock was acquired.

void Mutex::unlock

(

)

Release this thread's lock on the mutex

Unlock this mutex, indicating to other threads that we're done with whatever this mutex is supposed to protect and that they are safe to read/write to it.

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The documentation for this class was generated from the following files:

• Mutex.h
• Mutex.cpp