Re: Multithreaded long process update window

From:
"AliR \(VC++ MVP\)" <AliR@online.nospam>
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.vc.mfc
Date:
Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:13:40 GMT
Message-ID:
<8Qlvj.12752$0w.9752@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net>
I couldn't recreate this problem.

What I did was create a CWinThread class, in it's InitInstance, I called
Sleep(5000); and then AfxMessageBox("Box1");
Then from the CWinApp::InitInstance, I created the thread, called
Sleep(20000);, and then AfxMessgaeBox("Box2);

Box1 showed up after ~ 5 seconds, and Box2 after 20

I personally would have used waitable timers in the thread instead of sleep.

#pragma once

#include <afxtempl.h>

typedef CMap<HANDLE,HANDLE,HANDLE,HANDLE> TimerMap;

// CDialogThread

class CDialogThread : public CWinThread
{
 DECLARE_DYNCREATE(CDialogThread)

protected:
 CDialogThread(); // protected constructor used by dynamic
creation
 virtual ~CDialogThread();

public:
 virtual BOOL InitInstance();
 virtual int ExitInstance();

protected:
   virtual BOOL OnIdle(LONG lCount);
 DECLARE_MESSAGE_MAP()

private:
   HANDLE SetTimer(LONGLONG Milliseconds);
   void KillTimer(HANDLE &Handle);

   void OnTimer(HANDLE Handle);

   HANDLE m_TimerHandle;
   TimerMap m_Timers;

};

// DialogThread.cpp : implementation file
//

#include "stdafx.h"
#include "DelayedStartTest.h"
#include "DialogThread.h"

// CDialogThread

IMPLEMENT_DYNCREATE(CDialogThread, CWinThread)

CDialogThread::CDialogThread()
{
}

CDialogThread::~CDialogThread()
{
}

BOOL CDialogThread::InitInstance()
{
   m_TimerHandle = SetTimer(5000);
   return TRUE;
}

int CDialogThread::ExitInstance()
{
 // TODO: perform any per-thread cleanup here
 return CWinThread::ExitInstance();
}

BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(CDialogThread, CWinThread)
END_MESSAGE_MAP()

// CDialogThread message handlers

HANDLE CDialogThread::SetTimer(LONGLONG Milliseconds)
{
   HANDLE Handle = CreateWaitableTimer(NULL,TRUE,NULL);
   LARGE_INTEGER liDueTime;
   liDueTime.QuadPart= Milliseconds * -10000;
   if (!SetWaitableTimer(Handle,&liDueTime,0,NULL,NULL,TRUE))
   {
      CloseHandle(Handle);
      ASSERT(FALSE);
      return NULL;
   }
   m_Timers.SetAt(Handle,Handle);
   return Handle;
}

void CDialogThread::KillTimer(HANDLE &Handle)
{
   if (Handle != NULL)
   {
      CancelWaitableTimer(Handle);
      CloseHandle(Handle);
      m_Timers.RemoveKey(Handle);
      Handle = NULL;
   }
}

BOOL CDialogThread::OnIdle(LONG lCount)
{
   HANDLE *pTimers = new HANDLE[m_Timers.GetCount()];
   HANDLE Handle;
   POSITION Pos = m_Timers.GetStartPosition();
   int i = 0;
   while (Pos)
   {
      m_Timers.GetNextAssoc(Pos,Handle,Handle);
      pTimers[i++] = Handle;
   }

   DWORD Ret =
WaitForMultipleObjects((DWORD)m_Timers.GetCount(),pTimers,FALSE,0);
   DWORD Err = GetLastError();

   if (Ret != WAIT_TIMEOUT &&
m_Timers.Lookup(pTimers[Ret-WAIT_OBJECT_0],Handle))
   {
      OnTimer(Handle);
   }

   delete [] pTimers;

   CWinThread::OnIdle(lCount);

   return TRUE;
}

void CDialogThread::OnTimer(HANDLE Handle)
{
   if (m_TimerHandle == Handle)
   {
      KillTimer(m_TimerHandle);
      AfxMessageBox("The wait dialog in the thread");

   }
}

AliR.

"Peter Boulton" <peter@data*nospam*perceptions.co.uk> wrote in message
news:fpkndt$6tg$2$830fa17d@news.demon.co.uk...

I am trying to develop a small window which can appear after a few seconds
delay if my app needs to wait to open a sql server recordset because some
of the records it needs are exclusively locked by another user.

In this situation the ado code blocks till the appointed connection
timeout period and then throws an exception. Rather than having my users
stare at an hourglass till this happens, I want a message window to appear
telling them it's waiting to access the data. On the other hand, if I
make it appear every time and the response from the database is instant
then I don't want to show it - it will just flash momentarily and
disappear, which is ugly.

So my idea is this:

- Launch a user interface thread. The thread goes to sleep for, say, 5
seconds.
- Open the recordset
- When the recordset 'opens' we then kill the user interface thread.
(Therefore if the open takes more than 5 secs the user sees the message
window, otherwise the thread which creates it gets killed before its
window is displayed.)

The problem I'm seeing is that where the main thread blocks waiting for
the recordset to open the user interface thread seems to also block, so
the window never appears.

I'm starting the new thread with:

m_pMyLongProcess =
(CLongProcessThread*)AfxBeginThread(RUNTIME_CLASS(CLongProcessThread),
THREAD_PRIORITY_NORMAL, 0, CREATE_SUSPENDED);

Then I'm initialising some member variables of m_pMyLongProcess and
calling m_pMyLongProcess->ResumeThread(); to get the thread running.

In my test code I simulate blocking with:

StartNewThread(); // This fn contains AfxBeginThread, the member
initialisations for the thread class, and ResumeThread()
Sleep(10000);
AfxMessageBox("Awake!");

(The AfxMessageBox serves no function other than to alert me that the main
thread has finished sleeping. The user interface thread window appears
simultaneously with the message box.)

On this code, the window launched in the user-interface thread appears
after the Sleep(10000) period rather than the 5 seconds (or whatever)
Sleep() in my user-interface thread. Which seems wrong - surely the
Sleep() should apply to the thread and not the process? (I hope I've
explained this clearly! I fear I'm missing something fairly fundamental
as I try to avoid threads as much as possible!) For anyone interested
enough, you can download my full test project at:

http://www.dataper.demon.co.uk/misc/LongProcessWndExample.zip

It's a small 135k zip. The thread is launched from the document. The
code for the user interface thread is in LongProcessThread.cpp/h. There
is a main menu option to mess around with dynamically changing the text on
the window.

I'm looking for enlightenment! Thanks.

Pete

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