<!-- page05.html,v 1.10 2000/03/19 20:09:26 jcej Exp --> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="Author" CONTENT="James CE Johnson"> <TITLE>ACE Tutorial 012</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY TEXT="#000000" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" LINK="#000FFF" VLINK="#FF0F0F"> <CENTER><B><FONT SIZE=+2>ACE Tutorial 012</FONT></B></CENTER> <CENTER><B><FONT SIZE=+2>Passing classes through ACE_Message_Queue</FONT></B></CENTER> <P> <HR WIDTH="100%"> <P> The Task is the only object we've not been through yet. I'll go ahead and show both the header and cpp on this one page since the header isn't very large. <P> <HR WIDTH="100%"> <HR width=50%><P><center>task.h</center><HR width=50%> <PRE> <font color=red>// page05.html,v 1.10 2000/03/19 20:09:26 jcej Exp</font> <font color=blue>#ifndef</font> <font color=purple>TASK_H</font> <font color=blue>#define</font> <font color=purple>TASK_H</font> <font color=blue>#include</font> "<A HREF="../../../ace/Task.h">ace/Task.h</A>" <font color=blue>#if !defined</font> (<font color=purple>ACE_LACKS_PRAGMA_ONCE</font>) <font color=blue># pragma</font> <font color=purple>once</font> <font color=blue>#endif</font> <font color=red>/* ACE_LACKS_PRAGMA_ONCE */</font> <font color=red>/* This is our basic thread-pool Task. We have a choice of pool size on the open() and the usual svc() and close() methods. A new addition is the ACE_Barrier object. This will allow the synchronization of our svc() methods so that they all start at the "<font color=green>same</font>" time. The normal case may allow one thread to start working earlier than others. There's no real harm in it but you can get better "<font color=green>work by thread</font>" statistics if they start out together. */</font> class Task : public ACE_Task < ACE_MT_SYNCH > { public: typedef ACE_Task < ACE_MT_SYNCH > inherited; Task (void); ~Task (void); <font color=red>/* I really wanted this to be called open() but that was already claimed by the Task framework. start() will kick off our thread pool for us. */</font> int start (int threads = 1); virtual int svc (void); virtual int close (u_long flags = 0); protected: ACE_Barrier * barrier_; }; <font color=blue>#endif</font> </PRE> <HR width=50%><P><center>task.cpp</center><HR width=50%> <PRE> <font color=red>// page05.html,v 1.10 2000/03/19 20:09:26 jcej Exp</font> <font color=blue>#include</font> "<font color=green>task.h</font>" <font color=blue>#include</font> "<font color=green>block.h</font>" <font color=blue>#include</font> "<font color=green>work.h</font>" <font color=red>/* Boring default constructor. Be sure our barrier_ is initialized in case we get destructed before opened. */</font> <font color=#008888>Task::Task</font> (void) : barrier_ (0) { ACE_DEBUG ((LM_DEBUG, "<font color=green>(%P|%t) Task ctor 0x%x\n</font>", (void *) this)); } <font color=red>/* You'll see in the svc() method that when we get a shutdown request, we always putq() it back into our message queue. The last thread in the pool will do this also and result in there always being one shutdown request left in the queue when we get here. Just to be polite, we'll go ahead and get that message and release it. We also delete the barrier_ object we used to synch the svc() methods. */</font> <font color=#008888>Task::~Task</font> (void) { ACE_DEBUG ((LM_DEBUG, "<font color=green>(%P|%t) Task dtor 0x%x\n</font>", (void *) this)); ACE_Message_Block *message; this->getq (message); message->release (); delete barrier_; } <font color=red>/* The ACE_Barrier needs to know how many threads it will be working for. For that reason, we have to put off it's construction until we get here. We then pass the thread count through to our base class' activate(). */</font> int <font color=#008888>Task::start</font> (int threads) { barrier_ = new ACE_Barrier (threads); return this->activate (THR_NEW_LWP, threads); } <font color=red>/* We don't really do anything here but I wanted to provide a message in the output. */</font> int <font color=#008888>Task::close</font> (u_long flags) { ACE_DEBUG ((LM_DEBUG, "<font color=green>(%P|%t) Task close 0x%x\n</font>", (void *) this)); return <font color=#008888>inherited::close</font> (flags); } <font color=red>/* Now the svc() method where everything interesting happens. */</font> int <font color=#008888>Task::svc</font> (void) { <font color=red>/* All of the threads will block here until the last thread arrives. They will all then be free to begin doing work. */</font> this->barrier_->wait (); ACE_DEBUG ((LM_DEBUG, "<font color=green>(%P|%t) Task 0x%x starts in thread %u\n</font>", (void *) this, <font color=#008888>ACE_Thread::self</font> ())); <font color=red>// Where we getq() the message</font> ACE_Message_Block *message; <font color=red>// What we really put into the queue is a Message_Block, so we'll</font> <font color=red>// cast the 'message' to 'message_block' after getting it. I'm</font> <font color=red>// going through some extra steps here just to be explicit</font> Message_Block * message_block; <font color=red>// The baseclass of the work object we put into the queue. Notice</font> <font color=red>// that we can use this and not bother with the Work object at all.</font> Unit_Of_Work * unit_of_work; while (1) { <font color=red>// Get the message...</font> if (this->getq (message) == -1) { ACE_ERROR_RETURN ((LM_ERROR, "<font color=green>%p\n</font>", "<font color=green>getq</font>"), -1); } <font color=red>// Is it a shutdown request?</font> if (message->msg_type () == <font color=#008888>ACE_Message_Block::MB_HANGUP</font>) { <font color=red>// Send the shutdown to all of our pool peers</font> this->putq (message); break; } <font color=red>// Cast the pointer to our specialized Message_Block. We could</font> <font color=red>// have done this at the getq() call but I wanted to be explicit</font> <font color=red>// about what we're doing here</font> message_block = (Message_Block*)message; <font color=red>/* Since we left alone the ACE_Data_Block used by the Message_Block we have chosen to use it to send arbitrary data as well. */</font> const char *cp = message_block->rd_ptr (); <font color=red>// Don't forget to skip the NULL we inserted</font> message_block->rd_ptr (strlen (cp) + 1); <font color=red>/* Get the Unit_Of_Work pointer out of our specialized Message_Block. Since the methods of interest are virtual, we don't have to know what kind of work we're to do. */</font> unit_of_work = message_block->data(); <font color=red>/* Invoke a couple of method calls on the object we constructed. */</font> unit_of_work->who_am_i (); unit_of_work->what_am_i (); ACE_DEBUG ((LM_DEBUG, "<font color=green>(%P|%t) Block 0x%x contains (%s)\n</font>", (void *) message, cp)); <font color=red>/* Pretend that the work takes a little time to process. This prevents one thread from getting all of the action. In a real system you wouldn't need to do this since the work really would take time to complete. */</font> <font color=#008888>ACE_OS::sleep</font> (ACE_Time_Value (0, 5000)); <font color=red>/* Release the message block and allow the unit of work to also go away. */</font> message->release (); } return (0); } </PRE> <HR WIDTH="100%"> <P> Like main() this is actually simpler than the previous tutorial. It's much cleaner to carry around a pointer to the object we're working with than to try copying data. <P> The only complication is the new ACE_Barrier. It's a pretty simple object that makes it easy for you to synch threads in this way. You could do some fancy tricks with mutexes, counters & semaphores but why bother when the Barrier already exists. <P> <P><HR WIDTH="100%"> <CENTER>[<A HREF="../online-tutorials.html">Tutorial Index</A>] [<A HREF="page06.html">Continue This Tutorial</A>]</CENTER>