Re: [Mingw-w64-public] Thoughts on supporting the C++11 thread library on Windows

[Gabriel D. R. <gd...@in...>]

On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 8:39 AM, Jonathan Wakely <jwa...@gm...> wrote:
> On 7 May 2012 18:35, K. Frank wrote:
>> Hello Ruben and Gabriel!
>
> N.B. I'm not on the mingw lists, so please keep me CC'd if you want
> responses or any help from me in enhancing libstdc++ to work better on
> Windows.
>
>
>> And my P.S.:  As I mentioned in my earlier post, I have been using Ruben's
>> <thread>-enabled build, and it passes all of my tests.  So the approach of
>> sticking with the winpthreads implementation of <thread> and directing
>> any available manpower to fixing and/or improving it rather than to building
>> a separate implementation seems on the surface sensible.
>
> The C++11 thread library exposes native OS handle via the
> "native_handle()" member functions.  A <thread> implementation based
> on Windows thread primitives would allow mixing std::thread with
> WaitForMultipleObjects, which may be preferable to people who want to
> use mingw's std::thread and combine it with their own code.  I don't
> know if such people exist, I never use Windows except to run Putty to
> connect to GNU/Linux hosts.  If no mingw users care about
> --enable-threads=win32 and don't want a new --enable-threads=win64
> then yes, just using --enable-threads=posix and winpthreads seems
> sensible.  I guess that's a decision for the mingw maintainers.
>
> If however, users want --enable-threads=win32, then my first
> suggestion seems like a reasonable way to give them a better
> experience than they have today.

We do not seem to have Win32 and Win64 maintainers on the libstdc++
side.  That is why I forwarded your message to the WinGW-64 list.
(We do have maintainers on the compiler side; and they are on the
MinGW-64 list :-)
I use Win64 on my windows machines, for some of my programs, but I am
far from an accomplished Windows programmer and I know just
enough to be dangerous so I can't take on a Win64 port role.
However, I do believe a clean Win64 API for C++11 thread is desirable.

-- Gaby