Mastering C++ Multithreading

Book excerpt: Master multithreading and concurrent processing with C++ About This Book Delve into the fundamentals of multithreading and concurrency and find out how to implement them Explore atomic operations to optimize code performance Apply concurrency to both distributed computing and GPGPU processing Who This Book Is For This book is for intermediate C++ developers who wish to extend their knowledge of multithreading and concurrent processing. You should have basic experience with multithreading and be comfortable using C++ development toolchains on the command line. What You Will Learn Deep dive into the details of the how various operating systems currently implement multithreading Choose the best multithreading APIs when designing a new application Explore the use of mutexes, spin-locks, and other synchronization concepts and see how to safely pass data between threads Understand the level of API support provided by various C++ toolchains Resolve common issues in multithreaded code and recognize common pitfalls using tools such as Memcheck, CacheGrind, DRD, Helgrind, and more Discover the nature of atomic operations and understand how they can be useful in optimizing code Implement a multithreaded application in a distributed computing environment Design a C++-based GPGPU application that employs multithreading In Detail Multithreaded applications execute multiple threads in a single processor environment, allowing developers achieve concurrency. This book will teach you the finer points of multithreading and concurrency concepts and how to apply them efficiently in C++. Divided into three modules, we start with a brief introduction to the fundamentals of multithreading and concurrency concepts. We then take an in-depth look at how these concepts work at the hardware-level as well as how both operating systems and frameworks use these low-level functions. In the next module, you will learn about the native multithreading and concurrency support available in C++ since the 2011 revision, synchronization and communication between threads, debugging concurrent C++ applications, and the best programming practices in C++. In the final module, you will learn about atomic operations before moving on to apply concurrency to distributed and GPGPU-based processing. The comprehensive coverage of essential multithreading concepts means you will be able to efficiently apply multithreading concepts while coding in C++. Style and approach This book is filled with examples that will help you become a master at writing robust concurrent and parallel applications in C++.