TASKBLOCK(3P)TASKBLOCK(3P)NAME
taskblock, taskunblock, tasksetblockcnt - routines to block/unblock tasks
C SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <task.h>
int taskblock (tid_t tid);
int taskunblock (tid_t tid);
int tasksetblockcnt (tid_t tid, int count);
DESCRIPTION
These routines provide a complete set of blocking/unblocking capabilities
for tasks. Blocking is implemented via a counting semaphore in the
system. Each call to taskblock decrements the count and, if it goes
negative, the task is suspended. When taskunblock is called, the count
is incremented, and if it goes positive (or zero), the task is re-
started. This provides both a simple, race free synchronization ability
between two tasks, as well as a much more powerful capability to
synchronize multiple tasks.
In order to guarantee a known starting place the tasksetblockcnt function
may be called which will force the semaphore count to the value given by
count. New tasks have their semaphore zeroed. Normally, count should be
set to 0. If the resulting block count is greater than or equal to zero
and the task is currently blocked, it will be unblocked. If the
resulting block count is less than zero, the task will be blocked. Using
this, a simple rendezvous mechanism can be set up. If one task wanted to
wait for n other tasks to complete, it could set its block count to -n.
This would immediately force the task to block. Then as each task
finishes it unblocks the waiting task. When the n'th task finishes the
waiting task will be woken.
A task may block another task provided that standard UNIX permissions are
satisfied.
These routines will fail and no operation will be performed if one or
more of the following are true:
[EINVAL]
The tid specified is not a valid task id.
[EPERM]
The caller is not operating on itself, its effective user ID is not
super-user, and its real or effective user ID does not match the
real or effective user ID of the to be acted on task.
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TASKBLOCK(3P)TASKBLOCK(3P)SEE ALSOblockproc(2), taskdestroy(3P), taskctl(3P), taskcreate(3P).
DIAGNOSTICS
Upon successful completion, 0 is returned. Otherwise, a value of -1 is
returned to the calling task, and errno is set to indicate the error.
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