Re: ithreads and sockets

Yesterday, Steve Schein wrote:

> Launch the TCP socket and both UDP sockets on threads spawned from the
> main program and keeping them open to perform on-going tasks which
> primarily includes passing data back to the main program for two of the
> sockets and sending messages from the main program for the other
> socket.  I suspect the sockets need to stay open and not necessarily the
> threads but I hope to learn that during through the dialog here.  I've
> read through perlthrtut a couple of times and walked away with an empty
> and uneasy feeling.  In that document a reader is told that a thread
> must be closed before data can be passed back which seemed like a bad
> thing considering my sockets are intended to stay open indefinitely.

You may want to reread perlthrtut. It says that a thread can return data
just like any subroutine could when it ends. But a lot of the reason to use
threads it to be able to pass data from thread to thread easily. That's what
shared variables are all about. Set a variable to a value (lock it first) in
one thread, and read the value (again, lock it first) in another thread. Or
use Thread::Enqueue, and enqueue a value in one thread, then dequeue it in
another.

Paul