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Synchronization Issues

Contents

  1. 1 Overview
  2. 2 ICU4C Synchronization Primitives

Overview

ICU is designed for use in multi-threaded environments. Guidelines for developers using ICU are in the ICU Design section of the user guide.

Within the ICU implementation, access to shared or global data sometimes must be protected in order to provide the threading model promised by the ICU design. The information on this page is intended for developers of ICU library code itself.

ICU4J uses normal JDK synchronization services.

ICU4C faces a more difficult problem, as there is no standard, fully portable set of C or C++ synchronization primitives. Internally, ICU4C provides a small set of synchronization operations, and requires that all synchronization needed within the ICU library code be implemented using them.

The ICU4C synchronization primitives are for internal use only; they are not exported as API to normal users of ICU.

ICU provides implementations of its synchronization functions for Windows, POSIX and C++11 platforms, and provides a build-time interface to allow custom implementations for other platforms.

ICU4C Synchronization Primitives

The functions and types listed below are intended for use throughout the ICU library code, where ever synchronization is required. They are defined in the internal header umutex.h

All synchronization within ICU4C implementation code must use these, and avoid direct use of functions provided by a particular operating system or compiler.
For examples of use, search the ICU library code.

Low Level Atomics

typedef u_atomic_int32_t   A 32 bit integer type for use with low level atomic operations
umtx_atomic_inc(u_atomic_int32_t &var) 
umtx_atomic_dec(u_atomic_int32_t &var) 


Mutexes

 struct UMutex An ICU mutex. All instances must be static.
 U_MUTEX_INITIALIZER A C style initializer for a UMutex
 umtx_lock(UMutex *mutex) Lock a mutex.
 umtx_unlock(UMutex* mutex) Unlock a mutex.
 class Mutex C++ Mutex wrapper with automatic lock & unlock. See header mutex.h

One Time Initialization

 struct UInitOnce Provides an efficient facility for one-time initialization of static or global objects.
 umtx_initOnce(UInitOnce, ... A family of initialization functions

All of these functions are for internal ICU implementation use only. They are not exported, and not intended for external use.

Subpages (1): Custom ICU4C Synchronization
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