User-Level Threads State

The following state is unique to each thread.

• Thread ID

• Register state, including program counter (PC) and stack pointer

• Stack

• Signal mask

• Priority

• Thread-private storage

Threads share the process instructions and most of the process data. For that reason, a change in shared data by one thread can be seen by the other threads in the process. When a thread needs to interact with other threads in the same process, the thread can do so without involving the operating environment.

User-level threads are so named to distinguish them from kernel-level threads, which are the concern of systems programmers only. Because this book is for application programmers, kernel-level threads are not discussed.