Multithreading with _beginthread and CreateThread

Question

I try to write a Multithreading WIN32 Application in C++, but due to i get difficulties. One of the Window Procedure creates a Thread, which manages the output of this window. If this Window Procedure receives a message (from the other Window Procedures), it should transmit it to their Thread. At the beginning i worked with the _beginthread(...) function, what doesn't work. Then i tried it with the CreateThread(...) function, and it worked? What did i do wrong? (My English isn't so good, i hope you understand my problem)

Code with CreateThread(...):

DWORD thHalloHandle; // global
HWND  hwndHallo;     // Hwnd of WndProc4
...
LRESULT APIENTRY WndProc4 (HWND hwnd, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{
 static PARAMS params ;

 switch (message)
 {
    case WM_CREATE: {
        params.hwnd = hwnd ;
        params.cyChar = HIWORD (GetDialogBaseUnits ()) ;
        CreateThread(NULL, 0, thHallo, &params, 0, &thHalloHandle);
        return 0 ;
    }
...
    case WM_SPACE: {
        PostThreadMessage(thHalloHandle, WM_SPACE, 0, 0);
        return 0;
    }
...
}

Code with _beginthread(...):

...
case WM_CREATE: {
   params.hwnd = hwnd ;
   params.cyChar = HIWORD (GetDialogBaseUnits ()) ;
   thHalloHandle = (DWORD)_beginthread (thHallo, 0, &params) ;
   return 0;
}
...
case WM_SPACE: {
   PostThreadMessage(thHalloHandle, WM_SPACE, 0, 0);
   return 0;
}
...

thHallo for CreateThread:

DWORD WINAPI thHallo(void *pvoid)
{
    static TCHAR *szMessage[] = { TEXT(...), ...};
    // Some Declaration
    pparams = (PPARAMS) pvoid;
    while(!pparams->bKill)
    {
      MsgReturn = GetMessage(&msg, NULL, 0, 0);
      hdc = GetDC(pparams->hwnd);
      if(MsgReturn)
      {
          switch(msg.message)
          {
             // case....
          }
      }
    }
    return 0;
}

thHallo for _beginthread(...):

void thHallo(void *pvoid)
{
   ...
   // The Same like for CreateThread
   ...
   _endthread();
}

Answer 1

The _beginthread/ex() function is proving to be radically difficult to eliminate. It was necessary back in the previous century, VS6 was the last Visual Studio version that required it. It was a band-aid to allow the CRT to allocate thread-local state for internal CRT variables. Like the ones used for strtok() and gmtime(), CRT functions that maintain internal state. That state must be stored separately for each thread so that the use of, say, strtok() in one thread doesn't screw up the use of strtok() in another thread. It must be stored in thread-local state. _beginthread/ex() ensures that this state is allocated and cleaned-up again.

That has been worked on, necessarily so when Windows 2000 introduced the thread-pool. There is no possible way to get that internal CRT state initialized when your code gets called by a thread-pool thread. Quite an effort btw, the hardest problem they had to solve was to ensure that the thread-local state is automatically getting cleaned-up again when the thread stops running. Many a program has died on that going wrong, Apple's QuickTime is a particularly nasty source of these crashes.

So forget that _beginthread() ever existed, using CreateThread() is fine.

There's a serious problem with your use of PostThreadMessage(). You are used the wrong argument in your _beginthread() code which is why it didn't work. But there are bigger problems with it. The message that is posted can only ever be retrieved in your message loop. Which works fine, until it is no longer your message loop that is dispatching messages. That happens in many cases in a GUI app. Simple examples are using MessageBox(), DialogBox() or the user resizing the window. Modal code that works by Windows itself pumping the message loop.

A big problem is the message loop in that code knows beans about the messages you posted. They just fall in the bit-bucket and disappear without trace. The DispatchMessage() call inside that modal loop fails, the message you posted has a NULL window handle.

You must fix this by using PostMessage() instead. Which requires a window handle. You can use any window handle, the handle of your main window is a decent choice. Better yet, you can create a dedicated window, one that just isn't visible, with its own WndProc() that just handles these inter-thread messages. A very common choice. DispatchMessage() can now no longer fail, solves your bug as well.

Answer 2

Your call to CreateThread puts the thread ID into thHalloHandle. The call to _beginthread puts the thread handle into thHalloHandle.

Now, the thread ID is not the same as the thread handle. When you call PostThreadMessage you do need to supply a thread ID. You only do that for the CreateThread variant which I believe explains the problem.

Your code lacks error checking. Had you checked for errors on the call to PostThreadMessage you would have found that PostThreadMessage returned FALSE. Had you then gone on to call GetLastError that would have returned ERROR_INVALID_THREAD_ID. I do urge you to include proper error checking.

In order to address this you must first be more clear on the difference between thread ID and thread handle. You should give thHalloHandle a different name: thHalloThreadId perhaps. If you wish to use _beginthread you will have to call GetThreadId, passing the thread handle, to obtain the thread ID. Alternatively, use _beginthreadex which yields the thread ID, or indeed CreateThread.

Answer 3

Your problem is that you need a TID (Thread Identifier) to use PostThreadMessage.

_beginthread doesn't return a TID, it return a Thread Handle.

Solution is to use the GetThreadId function.

HANDLE hThread = (HANDLE)_beginthread (thHallo, 0, &params) ;
thHalloHandle = GetThreadId( hThread );

Better Code (see the documentation here)

HANDLE hThread = (HANDLE)_beginthreadex(NULL, 0, thHallo, &params, 0, &thHalloHandle ) ;