Possiblly bug of cygwin1.dll

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Jan 24 14:05, Corinna Vinschen via Cygwin wrote:
> On Jan 24 20:55, Takashi Yano via Cygwin wrote:
> > On Mon, 22 Jan 2024 19:24:52 -0800
> > Kaz Kylheku wrote:
> > > In real systems, the static distinction has no meaning.
> > > 
> > > This code can be inside a shared library:
> > > 
> > >    static pthread_mutex_t g_lock = PTHREAD_MUTEX_INITIALIZER;
> > > 
> > > this library could be loaded by dlopen and unloaded with dlclose.
> > > Thus static becomes dynamic!
> > > 
> > > And, by the way, this is a problem: if we have a library
> > > which does the above, and we repeatedly load it and unload
> > > it while using the mutex in between, it will leak.
> > 
> > As you pointed out, if dlopen()/dlclose() are called repeatedly,
> > handle leak might occur even if pthread_mutex_t is statically
> > allocated.
> 
> Cygwin 3.5 is due really soon now, so we can't change anything here,
> except fixing the pthread_once problem (@takashi, didn't you want to
> apply your patch?)
> 
> As for the next major release, do we have a chance to revamp
> pthread_mutex_t so that it does NOT dynamically create an OS synch
> object?  Is there a way we can change the really much too complex
> pthreads code to simplify things and use, say, SRWLOCKs, or any other
> synch mechanism which is faster and less intrusive?
> 
> The biggest problem, IMHO, is the DREADED fact that the original author
> of the pthreads code defined the exposed pthread types as, for instance,
> 
>   typedef struct __pthread_mutex_t {char __dummy;} *pthread_mutex_t;
> 
> So they only take 1 byte in user space and there's no chance to fit
> an SRWLOCK or, FWIW, a LONG value in there to be used with Interlocked
> functions.  That's really a problem we're kind of stuck with, I fear.

No, wait, I'm an idiot.  The types are defined as *pointers*, so
they have a size of 8 bytes in user code.  That means we should
be able to implement this differently, less dynamic, and still
be able to do it backward compatible.

We *really should try that and simplifying things at the same time.

Is anybody willing to give this a whirl?  We have a good year until
the next major release...


Corinna