MT-safe iostream Restrictions

The restricted definition of MT-safety for the iostream library means that a number of programming idioms used with iostream are unsafe in a multithreaded environment using shared iostream objects.

Checking Error State

To be MT-safe, error checking must occur in a critical region with the I/O operation that causes the error. The following example illustrates how to check for errors:

Example 4-1 Checking Error State

#include <iostream.h>
enumm iostate { IOok, IOeof, IOfail };

iostate read_number(istream& istr, int& num)
{
	stream_locker sl(istr, stream_locker::lock_now);

	istr >> num;

	if (istr.eof()) return IOeof;
	if (istr.fail()) return IOfail;
	return IOok;
}

In this example, the constructor of the stream_locker object sl locks the istream object istr. The destructor of sl, called at the termination of read_number, unlocks istr.

Obtaining Characters Extracted by Last Unformatted Input Operation

To be MT-safe, the gcount function must be called within a thread that has exclusive use of the istream object for the period that includes the execution of the last input operation and gcount call. The following example shows a call to gcount:

Example 4-2 Calling gcount

#include <iostream.h>
#include <rlocks.h>
void fetch_line(istream& istr, char* line, int& linecount)
{
	stream_locker sl(istr, stream_locker::lock_defer);

	sl.lock(); // lock the stream istr
	istr >> line;
	linecount = istr.gcount();
	sl.unlock(); // unlock istr
	...
}

In this example, the lock and unlock member functions of class stream_locker define a mutual exclusion region in the program.

User-Defined I/O Operations

To be MT-safe, I/O operations defined for a user-defined type that involve a specific ordering of separate operations must be locked to define a critical region. The following example shows a user-defined I/O operation:

Example 4-3 User-Defined I/O Operations

#include <rlocks.h>
#include <iostream.h>
class mystream: public istream {

	// other definitions...
	int getRecord(char* name, int& id, float& gpa);
};

int mystream::getRecord(char* name, int& id, float& gpa)
{
	stream_locker sl(this, stream_locker::lock_now);

	*this >> name;
	*this >> id;
	*this >> gpa;

	return this->fail() == 0;
}