Updated 2015-10-14 22:12:43 by ak

Mats Bengtsson

Experiment after suggestion by Zoran Vasiljevic at comp.lang.tcl to send a script from *any* thread to a thread with a Tcl interpreter. This can be useful for extension developers in C that uses a library that executes callbacks in other threads than the main thread where the Tcl interpreter lives. Most code duplicated from the thread package.
         /* 
         * XThreadUtil.c
         *
         * Experiment after suggestion by Zoran Vasiljevic at comp.lang.tcl
         * to send a script from *any* thread to a thread with a Tcl interpreter.
         * This can be useful for extension developers in C that uses a library
         * that executes callbacks in other threads than the main thread where
         * the Tcl interpreter lives.
         * Most code duplicated from the thread package.
         *
         * XThreadUtil stands for "eXtension Thread Utilities".
         *
         * By Mats Bengtsson and Zoran Vasiljevic 2006
         *
         *   1. XThread_RegisterThread 
         *   2. XThread_UnregisterThread 
         *   3. XThread_EvalInThread 
         *
         *   The 1. needs to be called from your master thread, i.e. the 
         *   one you would like to execute the callbacks within.
         *   The 2. needs to be called when your master thread exits (if ever) 
         *   or when you do not want to execute any callbacks.
         *   The 3. needs to be called from your IAX threads to post callbacks 
         *   to the master thread. 
         */

        #if TARGET_API_MAC_CARBON
        #        include <Tcl/tcl.h>
        #else
        #        include "tcl.h"
        #endif

        #ifndef TCL_TSD_INIT
        #define TCL_TSD_INIT(keyPtr) \
          (ThreadSpecificData*)Tcl_GetThreadData((keyPtr),sizeof(ThreadSpecificData))
        #endif

        /*
         * This is used to register the interp for running scripts passed
         * to the thread over the event loop.
         */

        typedef struct ThreadSpecificData {
            Tcl_Interp *interp;                   /* Interp to evaluate scripts */
        } ThreadSpecificData;

        static Tcl_ThreadDataKey dataKey;

        /*
         * This is the event used to send commands to other threads.
         */

        typedef struct ThreadEvent {
            Tcl_Event event;                      /* Must be first */
            struct ThreadSendData *sendData;      /* See below */
        } ThreadEvent;

        typedef int  (ThreadSendProc) _ANSI_ARGS_((Tcl_Interp*, ClientData));
        typedef void (ThreadSendFree) _ANSI_ARGS_((ClientData));

        static ThreadSendProc ThreadSendEval;     /* Does a regular Tcl_Eval */

        /*
         * This is used to communicate commands between source and target threads.
         */

        typedef struct ThreadSendData {
            ThreadSendProc *execProc;             /* Func to exec in remote thread */
            ClientData      clientData;           /* Ptr to pass to send function */
            ThreadSendFree *freeProc;             /* Function to free client data */
        } ThreadSendData;


        static void                
        ThreadSend                _ANSI_ARGS_((Tcl_ThreadId targetId, ThreadSendData *send));

        static int          
        ThreadEventProc        _ANSI_ARGS_((Tcl_Event *evPtr, int mask));

        static void         
        ThreadFreeProc        _ANSI_ARGS_((ClientData clientData));

        /*
         *----------------------------------------------------------------------
         *
         * XThread_RegisterThread --
         *
         *  Register thread as a target for sending scripts. The scripts will
         *  be executed in the passed interpreter.
         *
         * Results:
         *  None.
         *
         * Side effects:
         *  Reserves the passed interp.
         *
         *----------------------------------------------------------------------
         */

        void XThread_RegisterThread(Tcl_Interp *interp)
        {
            ThreadSpecificData* tsdPtr = TCL_TSD_INIT(&dataKey);

            tsdPtr->interp = interp;
            Tcl_Preserve((ClientData)interp);
        }

        /*
         *----------------------------------------------------------------------
         *
         * XThread_UnregisterThread --
         *
         *  Makes this thread never execute any scripts passed to it.
         *
         * Results:
         *  None.
         *
         * Side effects:
         *  Releases the registered interp, if any.
         *
         *----------------------------------------------------------------------
         */

        void XThread_UnregisterThread()
        {
            ThreadSpecificData* tsdPtr = TCL_TSD_INIT(&dataKey);

            if (tsdPtr->interp) {
                Tcl_Release((ClientData)tsdPtr->interp);
                tsdPtr->interp = NULL;
            }
        }

        /*
         *----------------------------------------------------------------------
         *
         * XThread_EvalInThread --
         *
         *  Run a script in another thread. The current (source) thread can be
         *  any thread, not necessarily created from Tcl. Any script results are
         *  ignored and control is immediately returned to the caller.
         *
         *  The target thread should register itself to allow executing of such
         *  scripts by the call to XThread_RegisterThread()
         *  
         *
         * Results:
         *  None.
         *
         * Side effects:
         *  Script may be executed in target thread.
         *
         *----------------------------------------------------------------------
         */

        void XThread_EvalInThread(Tcl_ThreadId threadId, const char *script, int flags)
        {
            ThreadSendData *sendPtr;
            int len = strlen(script);

            /*
             * Prepare job record for the target thread
             */

            sendPtr = (ThreadSendData*)Tcl_Alloc(sizeof(ThreadSendData));
            sendPtr->execProc   = ThreadSendEval;
            sendPtr->freeProc   = (ThreadSendFree*)Tcl_Free;
            sendPtr->clientData = (ClientData)strcpy(Tcl_Alloc(1+len), script);

            ThreadSend((Tcl_ThreadId)threadId, sendPtr);
        }

        /*
         *----------------------------------------------------------------------
         *
         * ThreadSend --
         *  @@@ Stripped down (Mats)
         *
         *  Run the procedure in other thread
         *
         * Results:
         *  None.
         *
         * Side effects:
         *  None.
         *
         *----------------------------------------------------------------------
         */

        static void
        ThreadSend(targetId, send)
            Tcl_ThreadId targetId;       /* Thread Id of other thread. */
            ThreadSendData *send;        /* Pointer to structure with work to do */
        {
            ThreadEvent *eventPtr;

            /* 
             * Create the event for target thread event queue.
             */

            eventPtr = (ThreadEvent*)Tcl_Alloc(sizeof(ThreadEvent));
            eventPtr->sendData = send;
            eventPtr->event.proc = ThreadEventProc;

            /*
             * Queue the event and poke the other thread's notifier.
             * The thread "id" should eventually visit it's event
             * loop in order to process this event.
             */

            Tcl_ThreadQueueEvent(targetId, (Tcl_Event*)eventPtr, TCL_QUEUE_TAIL);
            Tcl_ThreadAlert(targetId);

            return;
        }

        /*
         *----------------------------------------------------------------------
         *
         * ThreadSendEval --
         *
         *  Evaluates Tcl script passed from source to target thread.
         *
         * Results:
         *  A standard Tcl result.
         *
         * Side effects:
         *
         *----------------------------------------------------------------------
         */

        static int 
        ThreadSendEval(interp, clientData)
            Tcl_Interp *interp;
            ClientData clientData;
        {
            ThreadSendData *sendPtr = (ThreadSendData*)clientData;
            char *script = (char*)sendPtr->clientData;

            return Tcl_EvalEx(interp, script, -1, TCL_EVAL_GLOBAL);
        }

        /*
         *----------------------------------------------------------------------
         *
         * ThreadEventProc --
         *
         *  Handle the event in the target thread.
         *  @@@ Stripped down (Mats)
         *
         * Results:
         *  Returns 1 to indicate that the event was processed.
         *
         * Side effects:
         *  Depends on the work to do.
         *
         *----------------------------------------------------------------------
         */

        static int
        ThreadEventProc(evPtr, mask)
            Tcl_Event *evPtr;           /* Really ThreadEvent */
            int mask;
        {
            ThreadSpecificData *tsdPtr = TCL_TSD_INIT(&dataKey);
            ThreadEvent      *eventPtr = (ThreadEvent*)evPtr;
            ThreadSendData    *sendPtr = eventPtr->sendData;

            if (tsdPtr->interp != NULL) {
                if (sendPtr) {
                    Tcl_CreateThreadExitHandler(ThreadFreeProc, (ClientData)sendPtr);
                    (*sendPtr->execProc)(tsdPtr->interp, (ClientData)sendPtr);
                    Tcl_DeleteThreadExitHandler(ThreadFreeProc, (ClientData)sendPtr);
                }
            }
            
            ThreadFreeProc((ClientData)sendPtr);

            return 1;
        }

        /*
         *----------------------------------------------------------------------
         *
         * ThreadFreeProc --
         *
         *  Called when we are exiting and memory needs to be freed.
         *
         * Results:
         *  None.
         *
         * Side effects:
         *  Clears up mem specified in ClientData
         *
         *----------------------------------------------------------------------
         */

        static void
        ThreadFreeProc(clientData)
            ClientData clientData;
        {
            ThreadSendData *anyPtr = (ThreadSendData*)clientData;

            if (anyPtr) {
                if (anyPtr->clientData) {
                    (*anyPtr->freeProc)(anyPtr->clientData);
                }
                Tcl_Free((char*)anyPtr);
            }
        }

PYK 2015-10-13: Tcl_Async functions can also be used to this end, as illustrated in the Androwish fork of Tclmixer.

ak - 2015-10-14 22:06:37

Other places demo-ing similar concepts are the files tclIORChan.c and tclIORTrans.c in the Tcl core, and the support_callback*.tcl files in the Kinetcl binding to Kinect/OpenNI.