[fpc-devel] Suspicion about TThread.Synchronize

[Martin]

All based on win32

Pretext:
I have an issue with a crash in PopThreadQueueHead called by 
CheckSynchronize.  (3.0.2)
It happens in the Lazarus IDE, but at a low percentage only. (And not 
yet in the debugger)
I don't think the below is related, but I found it while looking around.

Potential Issue: (3.0.2 and trunk 37936)

I have not looked very deep into the threading internals, so I may have 
missed something, but I thought I just bring it up for review.

rtl\objpas\classes\classes.inc
      class procedure TThread.Synchronize(AThread: TThread; AMethod: 
TThreadMethod);
contains those lines (outside a CriticalSection):
     ThreadQueueAppend(AThread.FSynchronizeEntry);

     AThread.FSynchronizeEntry^.Method := Nil;
     AThread.FSynchronizeEntry^.Next := Nil;   // outside of critical 
section


ThreadQueueAppend will enter a CriticalSection.
It will add the passed in FSynchronizeEntry (param aEntry) to 
ThreadQueueHead/Tail. For this it may use another entries Next pointer.

So what happens, if 2 (or more) threads call TThread.Synchronize?

What happens if
- thread 1, has just finished the line 
ThreadQueueAppend(AThread.FSynchronizeEntry);
- thread 2 now calls synchronize, and
    - as soon as thread1 leaves the CriticalSection in ThreadQueueAppend 
=> thread2 enters that CriticalSection
- thread2 adds it entry to the list, assigning it the Next^ of thread 
1's entry
- now thread1 continues, it sets Next^ to nil, removing the reference to 
thread 2's entry.

Thread 2 would no longer be in the list.
That also means, if thread 2's entry has a Next^, then this may not be 
set to nil, if the entry it points to is removed?