Something to look at here is the ACE_Barrier usage. In the constructor, we tell the barrier how many threads we're using. Then, in the svc() method, we use the barrier's wait() method. You can think of the barrier as a semaphore initialized to the thread count. Each time wait() is invoked, the semaphore is decremented and the thread is blocked. When the count equals zero, all threads are unblocked and allowed to continue.

Note: This isn't the way ACE_Barrier really works, it's just an analogy

// $Id$

#include "task.h"
#include "block.h"

/* Set our housekeeping pointer to NULL and tell the user we exist.  */
Task::Task (size_t n_threads)
  : barrier_ (n_threads),
    n_threads_ (n_threads)
{
  ACE_DEBUG ((LM_DEBUG,
              "(%P|%t) Task ctor 0x%x\n",
              (void *) this));
}

/* Take care of cleanup & tell the user we're going away.  */
Task::~Task (void)
{
  ACE_DEBUG ((LM_DEBUG,
              "(%P|%t) Task dtor 0x%x\n",
              (void *) this));

  /* Get our shutdown notification out of the queue and release it.  */
  ACE_Message_Block *message;

  /* Like the getq() in svc() below, this will block until a message
    arrives.  By blocking, we know that the destruction will be paused
    until the last thread is done with the message block.  */
  this->getq (message);
  message->release ();
}

/* Open the object to do work.  Next, we activate the Task into the
  number of requested threads.  */
int
Task::open (void *unused)
{
  ACE_UNUSED_ARG (unused);

  return this->activate (THR_NEW_LWP,
                         n_threads_);
}

/* Tell the user we're closing and invoke the baseclass' close() to
  take care of things.  */
int
Task::close (u_long flags)
{
  ACE_DEBUG ((LM_DEBUG,
              "(%P|%t) Task close 0x%x\n",
              (void *) this));
  return inherited::close (flags);
}

/* Our svc() method waits for work on the queue and then processes
  that work.  */
int
Task::svc (void)
{
  /* This will cause all of the threads to wait on this line until all
    have invoked this method.  The net result is that no thread in the
    Task will get a shot at the queue until all of the threads are
    active.  There's no real need to do this but it's an easy intro
    into the use of ACE_Barrier.  */
  this->barrier_.wait ();

  ACE_DEBUG ((LM_DEBUG,
              "(%P|%t) Task 0x%x starts in thread %d\n",
              (void *) this,
              ACE_Thread::self ()));

  /* Remember that get() needs a reference to a pointer.  To save
    stack thrashing we'll go ahead and create a pointer outside of the
    almost- infinite loop.  */
  ACE_Message_Block *message;

  for (;;)
    {
      /* Get a message from the queue.  Note that getq() will block
        until a message shows up.  That makes us very
        processor-friendly.  */
      if (this->getq (message) == -1)
        ACE_ERROR_RETURN ((LM_ERROR,
                           "%p\n",
                           "getq"),
                          -1);
      /* If we got the shutdown request, we need to go away.  */
      if (message->msg_type () == ACE_Message_Block::MB_HANGUP)
        {
          /* Forward the request to any peer threads.  */
          this->putq (message);

          /* Leave the infinite loop so that the thread exits.  */
          break;
        }

      /* The message queue stores char* data.  We use rd_ptr() to get
        to the beginning of the data.  */
      const char *cp = message->rd_ptr ();

      /* Move the rd_ptr() past the data we read.  This isn't real
        useful here since we won't be reading any more from the block
        but it's a good habit to get into.  */
      message->rd_ptr (ACE_OS::strlen (cp));

      /* Display the block's address and data to the user.  */
      ACE_DEBUG ((LM_DEBUG,
                  "(%P|%t) Block 0x%x contains (%s)\n",
                  (void *) message,
                  cp));

      /* Pretend that it takes a while to process the data.  */
      ACE_OS::sleep (ACE_Time_Value (0, 5000));

      /* Release the message block.  Notice that we never delete a
        message block.  Blocks are reference counted & the release()
        method will take care of the delete when there are no more
        references to the data.  */
      message->release ();
    }

  return 0;
}

This is all pretty straight-forward too. One gottcha we avoided was a memory leak due to our shutdown message. Notice that svc() enqueues that block without bothering to see if there are any more threads to dequeue it. Thats why our dtor can call getq() without worrying about blocking infinitely: it knows the message block will be there.

Also notice that we haven't used THR_DETACHED in this tutorial. Why? Because in message_queue.cpp we call wait() to wait for all of the task's threads to exit. That prevents the leak that we normally avoid by using THR_DETACHED.