PureBasic Forum

Hi,

I'm having a lot of trouble with threads on Linux. I have created a shared library that when the main program tells it to, launches an external program and runs a thread to monitor when the program has stopped. When the program does stop, however, the main program freezes and becomes unresponsive.

Both the main program and shared library have "Create threadsafe executable" enabled.

Am I doing something wrong? It all works fine on Windows and macOS.


This is ThreadProcedure:
And this is the Stop procedure:

...could be the issue is using Kill Program before Close Program?

It still happens if I switch them around. If I take out KillProgram, I get an IMA. With only KillProgram, it doesn't give me an IMA, but does freeze.

It doesn't freeze or give me an IMA if I comment out the call to Stop() in ThreadProcedure...but without that, how do I tell the main program that the external program has closed? My shared library doesn't open any windows or have its own event loop, so can I use PostEvent? Or is there another way?

Just off the top of my head

The thread procedure is the one that detects the external program has finished. So let's try CloseProgram() from there. The Thread can update a Global Var igExternalClosed = #True, which any other part of the main program can check periodically.

I have to control a few external programs and the most stable and quickest coding method was a file based handshake. TCP/UDP was an option but more complex to implement between developers. It depends on the speed required for your implementation.

Regarding calling KillProgram before CloseProgram, I checked the manual and it says that's what you're supposed to do.

I just tried this and it seems to work great. Thanks for the idea!

Would a file based handshake be each program updating a file based on whether it's running or not? I wouldn't know where to start with TCP/UDP between two apps. I might need to look into that in the future. Do you know any good examples for that?

If you are the author of the external program, then it is simple.
Write a "MyApp.run" file to some non-privileged folder(no Admin required).
MyApp.exe looks for the presence of "MyApp.run". If found, then it does something.
After doing something, MyApp.exe writes "MyApp.ran".
There are many variations, and you can add data to the contents of the files if you need.
Avoid using the Clipboard for this action, since you cannot guarantee the user, or another app will alter the clipboard.
TCP/UDP examples were done by mk-soft and maybe infratec?

I see that about CloseProgram() - that function is effectively misnamed since it isn't closing the program, it's closing the connection.

Ah, thanks. That's an interesting way of doing it. I would never use the clipboard since that is for the user's use. I would never want to risk overwriting something important.

.... you could also use shared memory.

Your ThreadProcedure() checks myProgram, which is a variable local to StartExternalProgram().

Most likely your problem is in the SendMainProgramSignal() procedure.

Also, why not use #PB_Program_Wait?



Edit: Remember that any procedure you call from a thread, is also running in that thread.