This class encapsulates OpenStep threading. See
NSLock
and its subclasses for handling synchronisation between
threads. Each process begins with a main
thread and additional threads can be created using
NSThread. The GNUstep implementation of OpenStep
has been carefully designed so that the internals of
the base library do not use threading (except for
methods which explicitly deal with threads of
course) so that you can write applications without
threading. Non-threaded applications are more
efficient (no locking is required) and are easier
to debug during development.
Returns the NSThread object corresponding to the
current thread.
NB. In GNUstep the library internals use the
GSCurrentThread()
function as a more efficient mechanism for doing
this job - so you cannot use a category to override
this method and expect the library internals to use
your implementation.
Create a new thread - use this method rather than
alloc-init. The new thread will begin
executing the message given by
aSelector, aTarget, and
anArgument. This should have no return
value, and must set up an autorelease pool if
retain/release memory management is used.
It should free this pool before it finishes execution.
Terminates the current thread. Normally
you don't need to call this method explicitly, since
exiting the method with which the thread was
detached causes this method to be called
automatically.
Returns a flag to say whether the application is
multi-threaded or not. An application
is considered to be multi-threaded if any thread other
than the main thread has been started, irrespective of
whether that thread has since terminated.
NB. This method returns YES if called
within a handler processing
NSWillBecomeMultiThreadedNotification
Set the priority of the current thread. This is a value
in the range 0.0 (lowest) to 1.0 (highest) which is
mapped to the underlying system priorities.
Initialises the receiver to send the message
aSelector to the object aTarget
with the argument anArgument (which may be
nil). The arguments
aTarget and aSelector are
retained while the thread is running.
Return the thread dictionary. This dictionary can be
used to store arbitrary thread specific data.
NB. This cannot be autoreleased, since we cannot be
sure that the autorelease pool for the thread will
continue to exist for the entire life of the
thread!
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Warning the underscore at the start of the
name of this instance variable indicates that, even
though it is not technically private, it is
intended for internal use within the package, and
you should not use the variable in other code.
Extra methods to permit messages to be sent to an
object such that they are executed in another
thread. The main thread is the thread in which
the GNUstep system is started, and where the GNUstep gui
is used, it is the thread in which gui drawing operations
must be performed.
Invokes
-performSelector:onThread:withObject:waitUntilDone:modes:
using the supplied arguments and an array containing common modes. These modes consist of NSRunLoopMode, NSConnectionreplyMode, and if in an application, the NSApplication modes.
This method performs aSelector on the
receiver, passing anObject as an
argument, but does so in the specified thread.
The receiver and anObject are both
retained until the method is performed.
The selector is performed when the runloop of
aThread next runs in one of the modes
specified in anArray. Where
this method has been called more than once before
the runloop of the thread runs in the required mode,
the order in which the operations in the thread is
done is the same as that in which they were added
using this method.
If there are no modes in anArray, the
method has no effect and simply returns
immediately.
The argument aFlag specifies whether the
method should wait until the selector has been
performed before returning. NB. This method does
not cause the runloop of aThread
to be run... so if the runloop is not executed by some
code in aThread, the thread waiting for
the perform to complete will block forever.
As a special case, if aFlag ==
YES and the current thread is
aThread, the modes array is ignored and
the selector is performed immediately. This behavior
is necessary to avoid the current thread being blocked
by waiting for a perform which will never happen
because the runloop is not executing.
Invokes
-performSelectorOnMainThread:withObject:waitUntilDone:modes:
using the supplied arguments and an array containing common modes. These modes consist of NSRunLoopMode, NSConnectionReplyMode, and if in an application, the NSApplication modes.
This method performs aSelector on the
receiver, passing anObject as an
argument, but does so in the main thread of the
program. The receiver and anObject
are both retained until the method is performed.
The selector is performed when the runloop of the
main thread next runs in one of the modes specified
in anArray. Where this method has
been called more than once before the runloop of the
main thread runs in the required mode, the order in
which the operations in the main thread is done is
the same as that in which they were added using this
method.
If there are no modes in anArray, the
method has no effect and simply returns
immediately.
The argument aFlag specifies whether the
method should wait until the selector has been
performed before returning. NB. This method does
not cause the runloop of the main thread to
be run... so if the runloop is not executed by some
code in the main thread, the thread waiting for the
perform to complete will block forever.
As a special case, if aFlag ==
YES and the current thread is the
main thread, the modes array is ignored and the
selector is performed immediately. This behavior
is necessary to avoid the main thread being blocked by
waiting for a perform which will never happen
because the runloop is not executing.
This category contains convenience initialisers and
methods for executing blocks in different threads and
creating NSThread objects with a block as entry
point.
Returns an array of NSString objects representing
the current stack in an implementation-defined format.
May return an empty array if this feature is not
available.