Re: Async messages to a thread.

[John Colvin]

On Monday, 29 July 2013 at 16:19:03 UTC, lindenk wrote:
void foo(Tid parent) {
   bool run = true;
   while(run)
   {
        //do_some_blocking_function();
        receiveTimeout(dur!"msecs"(0),
            (string s){if(s == "STAHP!") run = false;}
        );
   }
   // clean up
   send(parent, "done");
}


void main()
{
   auto tid = spawn(&foo, thisTid);

   // do stuff / wait for some condition

   send(tid, "STAHP!");
   auto msg = receiveOnly!(string)();
   assert(msg == "done");
}

Ah, no I mean, what if do_some_blocking_function blocks for 
some indeterminate amount of time. I would like it to exit even 
when it is currently blocking (as it could be unpredictable 
when it will stop blocking).

The blocking function could start in a new thread and do a 
receiveTimeout periodically, or you could make it stateful (if 
necessary) and return periodically and be restarted if it hasn't 
been asked to stop (which is just a very ugly and rudimentary 
version of what you'd want to do with fibers).

Or, if you don't care about making a mess, just kill the thread I 
guess.