std.concurrency.spawn does not accept delegates

[teo]

On Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:31:19 +0000, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

> On 2011-07-19 05:40, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 18:39:01 -0400, Jonathan M Davis
>> <jmdavisProg at gmx.com>
>> 
>> wrote:
>> > On 2011-07-18 15:15, teo wrote:
>> >> On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 18:14:45 +0000, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>> >> > On 2011-07-18 10:54, Simen Kjaeraas wrote:
>> >> >> On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 18:06:46 +0200, Jonathan M Davis
>> >> >> <jmdavisProg at gmx.com>
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> wrote:
>> >> >> > On Monday 18 July 2011 15:55:52 teo wrote:
>> >> >> >> On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:26:27 -0400, Steven Schveighoffer
>> >> >> >> wrote:
>> >> >> >> > On Sun, 17 Jul 2011 15:29:02 -0400, teo
>> >> >> >> > <teo.ubuntu at yahoo.com>
>> >> >> >> > 
>> >> >> >> > wrote:
>> >> >> >> >> It looks like std.concurrency.spawn does not accept
>> >> >> >> >> delegates.
>> >> 
>> >> Is
>> >> 
>> >> >> >> >> there
>> >> >> >> >> any reason for that?
>> >> >> >> > 
>> >> >> >> > There is no type attached to the hidden 'this' pointer. So
>> >> >> >> > spawn
>> >> >> >> 
>> >> >> >> cannot
>> >> >> >> 
>> >> >> >> > guarantee it doesn't point to unshared data.
>> >> >> >> > 
>> >> >> >> > -Steve
>> >> >> >> 
>> >> >> >> Bad. I tried to pass as an argument a pointer to an instance
>> >> >> >> of a class -
>> >> >> >> a this pointer. That didn't work.
>> >> >> > 
>> >> >> > Only stuff that's immutable or implicitly convertible immutable
>> >> >> > can be passed
>> >> >> > across threads using spawn and send. Otherwise, there's a risk
>> >> >> > of
>> >> 
>> >> it
>> >> 
>> >> >> > ending up
>> >> >> > getting altered by both threads (or altered by one when the
>> >> >> > other
>> >> 
>> >> one
>> >> 
>> >> >> > is using
>> >> >> > at it). Sometimes, that can be a bit restrictive (particularly
>> >> >> > when you _know_
>> >> >> > that something isn't going to be altered by the thread sending
>> >> >> > it after its
>> >> >> > sent but the compiler doesn't), but it avoids all kinds of
>> >> 
>> >> problems.
>> >> 
>> >> >> > If you
>> >> >> > want to send a class object across, then it needs to be
>> >> >> > immutable (which tends
>> >> >> > to be a bit of a pain to do for classes, since they need to
>> >> >> > have an immutable
>> >> >> > constructor, which is often a pain to do).
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> It could be that assumeUnique should handle this, by transforming
>> >> >> the delegate into something spawn() and friends could handle.
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> Might be worth an enhancement request.
>> >> > 
>> >> > There have been discussions about how to do it in the past.
>> >> > Whether assumeUnique will work depends on whether casting to
>> >> > immutable(C) will work (where C is the class' type), and I don't
>> >> > know whether that cast will work or not. If it does, then
>> >> > assumeUnique will do it, since all
>> >> 
>> >> it
>> >> 
>> >> > does is cast to immutable, but it's the sort of thing that
>> >> > requires language support. There _might_ be a way to solve the
>> >> > problem with
>> >> 
>> >> some
>> >> 
>> >> > sort of Unique template that spawn and send knew about, but
>> >> > nothing of the sort has been done yet. But until a number of the
>> >> > issues with
>> >> 
>> >> const
>> >> 
>> >> > and immutable in the compiler have been sorted out, that sort of
>> >> > thing would probably be problematic anyway.
>> >> > 
>> >> > - Jonathan M Davis
>> >> 
>> >> This is a bit too restrictive in my opinion. Only the shared data
>> >> between
>> >> two threads should be immutable. But the threads can access all
>> >> sorts of mutable data as well. And in this case we are actually
>> >> talking about the control function (or start routine) of a thread.
>> >> As long as it's address is fixed within the memory of a process its
>> >> usage for that purpose should
>> >> be fine. Nobody is going to pass that address around. Am I missing
>> >> anything here?
>> > 
>> > When passing data between threads, it must be immutable.
>> 
>> I have to jump in and correct you, nobody else has.
>> 
>> You can also pass data marked as shared.
>> 
>> A solution could be to cast the class as shared, pass it, then cast it
>> back to unshared (ensuring you don't access the class from the
>> originator anymore).
>> 
>> This is not a compiler-enforced solution, but it gets the job done. But
>> there is risk of concurrency errors if you don't do it right. My
>> recommendation is to isolate the parts that create and pass the shared
>> data.
> 
> I thought that spawn and send disallowed shared and that you had to deal
> with shared separately, but if that's not the case, then that's not the
> case. Regardless, you can't just pass anything with spawn or send (as
> the OP seems to be trying to do). They have restrictions to avoid
> concurrency bugs.
> 
> - Jonathan M Davis


Well, I tried to pass a this pointer, because I wasn't able to use a 
delegate as a control function of the thread. All I need is access to the 
data within a class instance. That isn't static data.

Basically I have an object which encapsulates the access to some 
resource. Let's call it a generator. One can configure some parameters 
and later just switch it on. That should be in a worker thread, because  
some operations are blocking. I also need certain events to be 
communicated to other threads within the process. Passing messages is 
fine, because the data is immutable.

Now with spawn I have to use either a regular function or a static method 
of the class. The only other option that comes to my mind is to copy the 
implementation of the message box from std.concurrency and use the 
core.thread.Thread directly instead of spawn. Perhaps that will work.