Chapter 4 – Thread Concepts

Outline
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Definition of Thread
4.3 Motivation for Threads
4.4 Thread States: Life Cycle of a Thread
4.5 Thread Operations
4.6 Threading Models
4.6.1 User-Level Threads
4.6.2 Kernel-Level Threads
4.6.3 Combining User- and Kernel-Level Threads
4.7 Thread Implementation Considerations
4.7.1 Thread Signal Delivery
4.7.2 Thread Termination
4.8 POSIX and Pthreads
4.9 Linux Threads
4.10 Windows XP Threads
4.11 Java Multithreading Case Study, Part 1: Introduction to Java
Threads

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

Objectives

• After reading this chapter, you should understand:

– the motivation for creating threads.
– the similarities and differences between processes and threads.
– the various levels of support for threads.
– the life cycle of a thread.
– thread signaling and cancellation.
– the basics of POSIX, Linux, Windows XP and Java threads.

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 4.1 Introduction

• General-purpose languages such as Java, C#, Visual

C++ .NET, Visual Basic .NET and Python have made
concurrency primitives available to applications
programmer
• Multithreading
– Programmer specifies applications contain threads of execution
– Each thread designate a portion of a program that may execute
concurrently with other threads

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.2 Definition of Thread

• Thread
– Lightweight process (LWP)
– Threads of instructions or thread of control
– Shares address space and other global information with its
process
– Registers, stack, signal masks and other thread-specific data are
local to each thread
• Threads may be managed by the operating system or
by a user application
• Examples: Win32 threads, C-threads, Pthreads

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 4.2 Definition of Thread
Figure 4.1 Thread Relationship to Processes.

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.3 Motivation for Threads

• Threads have become prominent due to trends in

– Software design
• More naturally expresses inherently parallel tasks
– Performance
• Scales better to multiprocessor systems
– Cooperation
• Shared address space incurs less overhead than IPC

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 4.3 Motivation for Threads

• Each thread transitions among a series of discrete

thread states
• Threads and processes have many operations in
common (e.g. create, exit, resume, and suspend)
• Thread creation does not require operating system to
initialize resources that are shared between parent
processes and its threads
– Reduces overhead of thread creation and termination compared
to process creation and termination

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.4 Thread States: Life Cycle of a Thread

• Thread states
– Born state
– Ready state (runnable state)
– Running state
– Dead state
– Blocked state
– Waiting state
– Sleeping state
• Sleep interval specifies for how long a thread will sleep

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 4.4 Thread States: Life Cycle of a Thread
Figure 4.2 Thread life cycle.

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.5 Thread Operations

• Threads and processes have common operations

– Create
– Exit (terminate)
– Suspend
– Resume
– Sleep
– Wake

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 4.5 Thread Operations

• Thread operations do not correspond precisely to

process operations
– Cancel
• Indicates that a thread should be terminated, but does not guarantee
that the thread will be terminated
• Threads can mask the cancellation signal
– Join
• A primary thread can wait for all other threads to exit by joining
them
• The joining thread blocks until the thread it joined exits

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.6 Threading Models

• Three most popular threading models

– User-level threads
– Kernel-level threads
– Combination of user- and kernel-level threads

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 4.6.1 User-level Threads

• User-level threads perform threading operations in user space

– Threads are created by runtime libraries that cannot execute privileged
instructions or access kernel primitives directly
• User-level thread implementation
– Many-to-one thread mappings
• Operating system maps all threads in a multithreaded process to single
execution context
• Advantages
– User-level libraries can schedule its threads to optimize performance
– Synchronization performed outside kernel, avoids context switches
– More portable
• Disadvantage
– Kernel views a multithreaded process as a single thread of control
• Can lead to suboptimal performance if a thread issues I/O
• Cannot be scheduled on multiple processors at once

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.6.1 User-level Threads

Figure 4.3 User-level threads.

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 4.6.2 Kernel-level Threads

• Kernel-level threads attempt to address the limitations

of user-level threads by mapping each thread to its
own execution context
– Kernel-level threads provide a one-to-one thread mapping
• Advantages: Increased scalability, interactivity, and throughput
• Disadvantages: Overhead due to context switching and reduced
portability due to OS-specific APIs
• Kernel-level threads are not always the optimal
solution for multithreaded applications

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.6.2 Kernel-level Threads

Figure 4.4 Kernel-level threads.

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 4.6.3 Combining User- and Kernel-level Threads

• The combination of user- and kernel-level thread

implementation
– Many-to-many thread mapping (m-to-n thread mapping)
• Number of user and kernel threads need not be equal
• Can reduce overhead compared to one-to-one thread mappings by
implementing thread pooling
• Worker threads
– Persistent kernel threads that occupy the thread pool
– Improves performance in environments where threads are frequently
created and destroyed
– Each new thread is executed by a worker thread
• Scheduler activation
– Technique that enables user-level library to schedule its threads
– Occurs when the operating system calls a user-level threading library
that determines if any of its threads need rescheduling

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.6.3 Combining User- and Kernel-level Threads

Figure 4.5 Hybrid threading model.

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 4.7.1 Thread Signal Delivery

• Two types of signals

– Synchronous:
• Occur as a direct result of program execution
• Should be delivered to currently executing thread
– Asynchronous
• Occur due to an event typically unrelated to the current instruction
• Threading library must determine each signal’s recipient so that
asynchronous signals are delivered properly
• Each thread is usually associated with a set of
pending signals that are delivered when it executes
• Thread can mask all signals except those that it
wishes to receive

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.7.1 Thread Signal Delivery

Figure 4.6 Signal masking.

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 4.7.2 Thread Termination

• Thread termination (cancellation)

– Differs between thread implementations
– Prematurely terminating a thread can cause subtle errors in
processes because multiple threads share the same address space
– Some thread implementations allow a thread to determine when
it can be terminated to prevent process from entering
inconsistent state

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.8 POSIX and Pthreads

• Threads that use the POSIX threading API are called

Pthreads
– POSIX states that processor registers, stack and signal mask are
maintained individually for each thread
– POSIX specifies how operating systems should deliver signals to
Pthreads in addition to specifying several thread-cancellation
modes

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 4.9 Linux Threads

• Linux allocates the same type of process descriptor to

processes and threads (tasks)
• Linux uses the UNIX-based system call fork to
spawn child tasks
• To enable threading, Linux provides a modified
version named clone
– Clone accepts arguments that specify which resources to share
with the child task

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.9 Linux Threads

Figure 4.7 Linux task state-transition diagram.

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 4.10 Windows XP Threads

• Threads
– Actual unit of execution dispatched to a processor
– Execute a piece of the process’s code in the process’s
context, using the process’s resources
– Execution context contains
• Runtime stack
• State of the machine’s registers
• Several attributes

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.10 Windows XP Threads

• Windows XP threads can create fibers

– Fiber is scheduled for execution by the thread that creates
it, rather than the scheduler
• Windows XP provides each process with a thread
pool that consists of a number of worker threads,
which are kernel threads that execute functions
specified by user threads

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 4.10 Windows XP Threads
Figure 4.8 Windows XP thread state-transition diagram.

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.11 Java Multithreading Case Study, Part I:

Introduction to Java Threads

• Java allows the application programmer to create

threads that can port to many computing platforms
• Threads
– Created by class Thread
– Execute code specified in a Runnable object’s run method
• Java supports operations such as naming, starting and
joining threads

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 4.11 Java Multithreading Case Study, Part I:
Introduction to Java Threads
Figure 4.9 Java threads being created, starting, sleeping and printing. (Part 1 of 4.)

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.11 Java Multithreading Case Study, Part I:

Introduction to Java Threads
Figure 4.9 Java threads being created, starting, sleeping and printing. (Part 2 of 4.)

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 4.11 Java Multithreading Case Study, Part I:
Introduction to Java Threads
Figure 4.9 Java threads being created, starting, sleeping and printing. (Part 3 of 4.)

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

4.11 Java Multithreading Case Study, Part I:

Introduction to Java Threads
Figure 4.9 Java threads being created, starting, sleeping and printing. (Part 4 of 4.)

 2004 Deitel & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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