[m-rev.] for review: Add thread.spawn_native/4 and thread.spawn/4.

[Julien Fischer]

On Fri, 27 Jun 2014, Paul Bone wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 27, 2014 at 03:47:07PM +1000, Julien Fischer wrote:
>>>
>>> Here is a followup patch.
>>>
>>> On second thought, I don't know if thread handles themselves should be
>>> comparable.  I think we should provide a function to get the thread_id
>>> which can be compared.
>>>
>>>    :- func thread_id(thread) = thread_id.
>>>
>>> Peter
>>>
>>> ---
>>>
>>> Add thread ids to thread handles.
>>>
>>> Thread handles should not be dummy types because all thread handles
>>> would compare equal.  Add thread ids to thread handles.
>>
>> Is there any reason the thread handles and thread ids cannot be the
>> same thing at the user level?  I don't see why we require a separate
>> thread_id type.
>>
>
> I agree, at least until we have a need to sepearate them, for example if
> Peter wants to store the result of a thread's execution inside the thread
> type.

Even then, why do you need to make a separate thread_id type visible to
the user?   Thread handles could be defined as follows:

     :- type thread
 	--->	thread_handle(
 		    thread_id    :: <<target specific thread id>>,
                     thread_state :: <<ref to some heap cell>>
                     etc etc.
                  ).

Comparison and unification of thread handles would be done using the
first field of the above structure (i.e. what happens by default.)

Cheers,
Julien.