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Message-ID: <3D0928A3.6040402@textuality.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 16:20:03 -0700
From: Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>
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To: dev@apr.apache.org
Subject: Question re design/usage of lock/mutex routines
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I'm laying out plans for a big apache module and figuring out how to do 
locking/synchronization for in-memory data structures.  Classical 
multiple-reader/one-writer architecture, easy to implement with one 
atomic & one counting semaphore.

So I'm poking through APR docs, and I find obvious candidates:  Global 
Locking Routines (apr_global_mutex_child_init etc), Process Locking 
Routines (apr_proc_mutex_create etc), Thread Mutex Routines 
(apr_thread_mutex_create etc), and Thread RWLock Routines 
(apr_thread_rwlock_create etc).

Q0: Is there a better place to ask this kind of question or a TFM that I 
can R?  I spent some time in http://apr.apache.org/docs/apr/groupMumble

Q1: I assume global locks dispatch to Process or Thread locks as 
appropriate, with equivalent semantics?

Q2: How do the global routines decide which to call?

Q3: There is a stern warning in the global locking routines "There is 
considerable overhead in using this API if only cross-process or 
cross-thread mutual exclusion is required."  Suppose I want to build an 
apache module that will run in both threaded and forking deployments; do 
I shut up and swallow the overhead?  Or is this question evidence that 
I'm Unclear On The Concept?

Q4: I really need more or less exactly the RWLock semantics.  Is there 
any particular reason this is thread-only?  With ref to Q3 above, does 
this suggest I'd better build the semantics based on the global locks?

Cheers, Tim