Linux Threads suspend/resume

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I'm writing a code in which I have two threads running in parallel.

1st is the main thread which started the 2nd thread. 2nd thread is just a simple thread executing empty while loop.

Now I want to pause / suspend the execution of 2nd thread by 1st thread who created it. And after some time I want to resume the execution of 2nd thread (by issuing some command or function) from where it was paused / suspended.

pthreads multithreading linux c
9 Answers

I tried suspending and resuming thread using signals, here is my solution. Please compile and link with -pthread.

Signal SIGUSR1 suspends the thread by calling pause() and SIGUSR2 resumes the thread.

From the man page of pause:

pause() causes the calling process (or thread) to sleep until a signal is delivered that either terminates the process or causes the invocation of a signal-catching function.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <pthread.h>
#include <signal.h>

// Since I have only 2 threads so using two variables, 
// array of bools will be more useful for `n` number of threads.
static int is_th1_ready = 0;
static int is_th2_ready = 0;

static void cb_sig(int signal)
{
        switch(signal) {
        case SIGUSR1:
                pause();
                break;
        case SIGUSR2:
                break;
        }
}

static void *thread_job(void *t_id)
{
        int i = 0;
        struct sigaction act;

        pthread_detach(pthread_self());
        sigemptyset(&act.sa_mask);
        act.sa_flags = 0;
        act.sa_handler = cb_sig;

        if (sigaction(SIGUSR1, &act, NULL) == -1) 
                printf("unable to handle siguser1\n");
        if (sigaction(SIGUSR2, &act, NULL) == -1) 
                printf("unable to handle siguser2\n");

        if (t_id == (void *)1)
            is_th1_ready = 1;
        if (t_id == (void *)2)
            is_th2_ready = 1;

        while (1) {
                printf("thread id: %p, counter: %d\n", t_id, i++);
                sleep(1);
        }

        return NULL;
}

int main()
{
        int terminate = 0;
        int user_input;
        pthread_t thread1, thread2;

        pthread_create(&thread1, NULL, thread_job, (void *)1);
        // Spawned thread2 just to make sure it isn't suspended/paused 
        // when thread1 received SIGUSR1/SIGUSR2 signal
        pthread_create(&thread2, NULL, thread_job, (void *)2);

        while (!is_th1_ready && !is_th2_ready);

        while (!terminate) {
                // to test, I am sensing signals depending on input from STDIN
                printf("0: pause thread1, 1: resume thread1, -1: exit\n");
                scanf("%d", &user_input);

                switch(user_input) {
                case -1: 
                        printf("terminating\n");
                        terminate = 1;
                        break;
                case 0:
                        printf("raising SIGUSR1 to thread1\n");
                        pthread_kill(thread1, SIGUSR1);
                        break;
                case 1:
                        printf("raising SIGUSR2 to thread1\n");
                        pthread_kill(thread1, SIGUSR2);
                        break;
                }
        }

        pthread_kill(thread1, SIGKILL);
        pthread_kill(thread2, SIGKILL);

        return 0;
}
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