We will define a variable called tid of the type pthread_t to store the thread identifier. A thread identifier is a unique integer, that is, assigned to a thread in the system. Before creating a thread, the message In main function is displayed on the screen. We will create a thread and pass the identifier tid to the pthread_create function. The thread is created with the default attributes, and the runThread function is set to execute to create the thread.
In the runThread function, we will display the text message Running Thread to indicate that the thread was created and is running. We will invoke a for loop to display the sequence of numbers from 1 to 5 through the running thread. By invoking the pthread_join method, we will make the main method wait until the thread completes its task. It is essential to invoke the pthread_join here; otherwise, the main method will exit without waiting for the completion of the thread.
Let's use GCC to compile the createthread.c program, as follows:
D:\CBook>gcc createthread.c -o createthread
If you get no errors or warnings, that means the createthread.c program has been compiled into an executable file, createthread.exe. Let's run this executable file:
Voila! We've successfully completed a task with a single thread. Now, let's move on to the next recipe!