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* Move the cleanup code that frees memory allocated for a dead thread fromjb1998-09-301-5/+10
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | the thread kernel into a garbage collector thread which is started when the fisrt thread is created (other than the initial thread). This removes the window of opportunity where a context switch will cause a thread that has locked the malloc spinlock, to enter the thread kernel, find there is a dead thread and try to free memory, therefore trying to lock the malloc spinlock against itself. The garbage collector thread acts just like any other thread, so instead of having a spinlock to control accesses to the dead thread list, it uses a mutex and a condition variable so that it can happily wait to be signalled when a thread exists.
* Change signal model to match POSIX (i.e. one set of signal handlersjb1998-04-291-0/+97
for the process, not a separate set for each thread). By default, the process now only has signal handlers installed for SIGVTALRM, SIGINFO and SIGCHLD. The thread kernel signal handler is installed for other signals on demand. This means that SIG_IGN and SIG_DFL processing is now left to the kernel, not the thread kernel. Change the signal dispatch to no longer use a signal thread, and call the signal handler using the stack of the thread that has the signal pending. Change the atomic lock method to use test-and-set asm code with a yield if blocked. This introduces separate locks for each type of object instead of blocking signals to prevent a context switch. It was this blocking of signals that caused the performance degradation the people have noted. This is a *big* change!
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