As follow-up to the rework of thread-handling, likewise also
the implementation base for locking was switched over from direct
usage of POSIX primitives to the portable wrappers available in
the C++ standard library. All usages have been reviewed and
modernised to prefer λ-functions where possible.
With this series of changes, the old threadpool implementation
and a lot of further low-level support facilities are not used
any more and can be dismantled. Due to the integration efforts
spurred by the »Playback Vertical Slice«, several questions of
architecture could be decided over the last months. The design
of the Scheduler and Engine turned out different than previously
anticipated; notably the Scheduler now covers a wider array of
functionality, including some asynchronous messaging. This has
ramifications for the organisation of work tasks and threads,
and leads to a more deterministic memory management. Resource
management will be done on a higher level, partially superseding
some of the concepts from the early phase of the Lumiera project.
This is Step-2 : change the API towards application
Notably all invocation variants to support member functions
or a reference to bool flags are retracted, since today a
λ-binding directly at usage site tends to be more readable.
The function names are harmonised with the C++ standard and
emergency shutdown in the Subsystem-Runner is rationalised.
The old thread-wrapper test is repurposed to demonstrate
the effectiveness of monitor based locking.
After the fundamental switch from POSIX to the C++14 wrappers
the existing implementation of the Monitor can now be drastically condensed,
removing several layers of indirection. Moreover, all signatures
shall be changed to blend in with the names and patterns established
by the C++ standard.
This is Step-1 : consolidate the Implementation.
(to ensure correctness, the existing API towards application code was retained)
While not directly related to the thread handling framework,
it seems indicated to clean-up this part of the application alongside.
For »everyday« locking concerns, an Object Monitor abstraction was built
several years ago and together with the thread-wrapper, both at that time
based on direct usage of POSIX. This changeset does a mere literal
replacement of the POSIX calls with the corresponding C++ wrappers
on the lowest level. The resulting code is needlessly indirect, yet
at API-level this change is totally a drop-in replacment.
- the deadlock was caused by leaking error state through the C-style lumiera_error
- but the reason for the deadlock lies in the »convenience shortcut«
in the Object-Monitor scope guard for entering a wait state immediately.
This function undermines the unlocking-guarantee, when an exception
emanates from within the wait() function itself.
...in an attempt to clarify why numerous cross links are not generated.
In the end, this attempt was not very successful, yet I could find some breadcrumbs...
- file comments generally seem to have a problem with auto link generation;
only fully qualified names seem to work reliably
- cross links to entities within a namespace do not work,
if the corresponding namespace is not documented in Doxygen
- documentation for entities within anonymous namespaces
must be explicitly enabled. Of course this makes only sense
for detailed documentation (but we do generate detailed
documentation here, including implementation notes)
- and the notorious problem: each file needs a valid @file comment
- the hierarchy of Markdown headings must be consistent within each
documentation section. This entails also to individual documented
entities. Basically, there must be a level-one heading (prefix "#"),
otherwise all headings will just disappear...
- sometimes the doc/devel/doxygen-warnings.txt gives further clues
A classical carry-over of dirty values...
Problem arises, when starting an unconditional wait on the same object monitor,
which previously conducted a timed wait. Then the obsolete timeout from the previous
wait remained in place, causing our Sync-Wrapper (erroneously) to assume a timed wait
and then pthread to return immediately from this timed wait.
The result was permanent idle looping in the ProcDispatcher, after the first command was processed
...it should have been this way all the time.
Generic code might otherwise be ill guided to assume a conversion
from the Iterator to its value type, while in fact an explicit dereferentiation is necessary
Did a full review of state and locking logic, seems airtight now.
- command processing itself is unimplemented, we log a TODO message for now
- likewise, builder is not implemented
- need to add the deadlock safeguard #1054
- upgrade the configuration to a current version
- provide a frontpage with cross-links to other documentation
- define a set of modules; relevant classes and files can be
added to these, to create a exploration path for new readers
- fix a lot of errors in documentation comments
- use a custom configuration for the documentation pages
- tweak the navigation, the sections and further arrangements
to make them stand out more prominently, some entity comments
where started with a line of starts. Unfortunately, doxygen
(and javadoc) only recogise comments which are started exactly
with /**
This caused quite some comments to be ignored by doxygen.
Credits to Hendrik Boom for spotting this problem!
A workaround is to end the line of stars with *//**
Compilation with Clang 3.0 (which is available in Debian/stable) fails,
mostly due to some scoping and naming inconsistencies which weren't detected
by GCC. At some instances, Clang seems to have problems to figure out a
perfectly valid type definition; these can be resolved by more explicit
typing (which is preferrable anyway)
accessing the DiagnosticContext now inline when
providing the paramters for calling the C-functions.
No change in functionality, but saves us a lot of
syntactic noise.
especially, I do not want to pass a resource handle
through all locking function APIs; the memory
management of the resource tracker should better
be kept separate and not mixed with the monitor.
Also, I am rather reluctand regarding any extended
functionality for the monitor, like timed locks
or trylocks or read/write monitors. I think, the
monitor pattern is only beneficial when it is kept
fairly simple, advanced thread programming should
be pushed out into lib functions in the backend.
- clarify the meaning of run(true), run(fail), run(throw)
- do a real handshake between start() and the subsystem thread
- avoid accessing the SubsystenRunner after signalling termination
