A trick of building multithreaded application on Solaris

Firstly, Let’s see a simple multithreaded application:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <pthread.h>
#include <errno.h>

void *thread1_func(void *p_arg)
{
           errno = 0;
           sleep(3);
           errno = 1;
           printf("%s exit, errno is %d\n", (char*)p_arg, errno);
}

void *thread2_func(void *p_arg)
{
           errno = 0;
           sleep(5);
           printf("%s exit, errno is %d\n", (char*)p_arg, errno);
}

int main(void)
{
        pthread_t t1, t2;

        pthread_create(&t1, NULL, thread1_func, "Thread 1");
        pthread_create(&t2, NULL, thread2_func, "Thread 2");

        sleep(10);
        return;
}

What output do you expect from this program? Per my understanding, the errnoshould be a thread-safe variable. Though The thread1_func function changes theerrno, it should not affect errno in thread2_func function.

Let’s check it on Solaris 10:

bash-3.2# gcc -g -o a a.c -lpthread
bash-3.2# ./a
Thread 1 exit, errno is 1
Thread 2 exit, errno is 1

Oh! The errno in thread2_func function is also changed to 1. Why does it happen? Let’s find the root cause from the errno.h file:

/*
 * Error codes
 */

#include <sys/errno.h>

#ifdef  __cplusplus
extern "C" {
#endif

#if defined(_LP64)
/*
 * The symbols _sys_errlist and _sys_nerr are not visible in the
 * LP64 libc.  Use strerror(3C) instead.
 */
#endif /* _LP64 */

#if defined(_REENTRANT) || defined(_TS_ERRNO) || _POSIX_C_SOURCE - 0 >= 199506L
extern int *___errno();
#define errno (*(___errno()))
#else
extern int errno;
/* ANSI C++ requires that errno be a macro */
#if __cplusplus >= 199711L
#define errno errno
#endif
#endif  /* defined(_REENTRANT) || defined(_TS_ERRNO) */

#ifdef  __cplusplus
}
#endif

#endif  /* _ERRNO_H */

We can find the errno can be a thread-safe variable(#define errno (*(___errno()))) only when the following macros defined:

defined(_REENTRANT) || defined(_TS_ERRNO) || _POSIX_C_SOURCE - 0 >= 199506L

Let’s try it:

bash-3.2# gcc -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=199506L -g -o a a.c -lpthread
bash-3.2# ./a
Thread 1 exit, errno is 1
Thread 2 exit, errno is 0

Yes, the output is right!

From Compiling a Multithreaded Application, we can see:

For POSIX behavior, compile applications with the -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE flag set >= 199506L. For Solaris behavior, compile multithreaded programs with the -D_REENTRANT flag.

So we should pay more attentions when building multithreaded application on Solaris.

P.S., the full code is here.

Reference:
(1) Compiling a Multithreaded Application;
(2) What is the correct way to build a thread-safe, multiplatform C library?

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