Multithreading - The Delphi Way

© Martin Harvey 2000.

Multithreading - The Delphi Way.

Martin Harvey.

Version 1.0

Introduction.
Dedications.
Recommended Reading.
Navigation hints.

Chapter 1. What are threads? Why use them?
Chapter 2. Creating a thread in Delphi.
Chapter 3. Basic synchronization.
Chapter 4. Simple thread destruction.
Chapter 5. More thread destruction. Deadlock.
Chapter 6. More synchronization: Critical sections and mutexes.
Chapter 7. Mutex programming guidelines. Concurrency control.
Chapter 8. Delphi thread safe classes and Priorities.
Chapter 9. Semaphores. Data flow scheduling. The producer - consumer relationship.
Chapter 10. I/O and data flow: from blocking to asynchronous and back.
Chapter 11. Synchronizers and Events.
Chapter 12. Miscellanea. Chapter 13. Threads with BDE, Exceptions and DLLs
Chapter 13. Threads with BDE,Exceptions and DLLs
Chapter 14. A real world problem, and its solution.

Introduction

This guide is intended for anyone who is interested in improving performance and responsiveness in their delphi applications by using threads. It covers a range of topics from absolute beginner to intermediate level, and some of the real world examples raise issues bordering on the advanced. It assumes that the reader has a reasonable knowledge of Object Pascal programming, including simple object orientation, and a working understanding of event based programming.

Dedications

Dedicated to three members of the Computer Science department at the University of Cambridge: Dr Jean Bacon, Dr Simon Crosby, and Dr Arthur Norman.

Many thanks to Jean as a tutor for making a complicated subject seem simple, for providing excellent reference material, and for lifting a corner of the veil around a hitherto mysterious subject. She also deserves thanks as a director of studies, for explaining the Computer science timetable to me. It took me three years to figure it out for myself!

Many thanks to Simon as a tutor, for showing me that although modern operating systems may be fiendishly complicated, the principles underlying them are simple. He also deserves thanks for taking on a student with unconventional ideas about final year project material, and for providing much useful advice on my project dissertation.

Arthur Norman never taught me a thing about multithreading. He did however teach me many other things, which helped me when writing the more complicated parts of this guide:

There is no limit to the eccentricity of university lecturers.

Although most people prefer simplicity, there is a certain perverse enjoyment to be had doing things the complicated way, especially if you're cynical.

He also deserves a mention for some of the best quotes ever to fall from a computer science lecturers lips:

"There is something in the lecture course which may not have been visible so far, which is reality ..."

"The theoreticians have proven that this is unsolvable, but there's three of us, and we're smart ..."

"People who don't use computers are more sociable, reasonable, and ... less twisted."

"[If complexity theory lives up to its title] if that proves to be the case, I will be the winner, as not many of you will attempt the exam questions."

He even has his own fan page.