Re: crypt mutex

[Mikael Djurfeldt]

Marius Vollmer <address@hidden> writes:

>> In most cases, I would probably draw the line so that as much as
>> possible of the responsibility is left to the user with the
>> exceptions that 1. Guile should never segfault due to misuse in
>> this respect, and, 2. Guile need to have enough thread safety so
>> that it's reasonably convenient to write parallel programs.
>
> Yes, exactly my view.  Also, I would broaden point 1 a bit: we should
> also 'fix' functions that can not every be used in a threaded program
> without mutexes around them.  Like libc getpwent.  They might not
> segfault, but you can't use them anyway in a threaded program.

But the normal case is *not* a threaded program.  The everyday program
can use crypt with a static buffer without mutexes.  A *threaded*
program needs mutexes...

This is why I'm leaning towards a minimal policy---to design for the
common case of non-threaded programs, but leave the possibility open
to write parallel code without too much difficulty.

M