[fpc-pascal] A Thread Manager demo

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Hi,

[ I first posted this to the Lazarus mailing list, but I think my
questions are actually more related to FPC itself.  I apologize for
the cross posting in advance. ]

I'm busy writing a Thread Manager demo in FPC & Lazarus to help me
understanding threads better. This demo will then serve as a good
example of how to use threads and synchronization. No better way to
learn something than writing code! :)

A quick summary of what I want to do:
-------------------------------------------------------
* You can create a Sync Object by selecting one of the following
types: No Synchronization, Critical Section, Mutex or Semaphore.

* Then you can create as many threads as you want. Default thread
priority is Normal. Each thread counts down from 100% to 0% at which
point the thread is completed.

* A grid will show you all the threads you created. Each grid line
represents a thread.

* You can Stop, Resume or Kill an individual thread.

* You can change an individual thread's Priority (tpIdle thru
tpTimeCritical), though under Linux I know the thread priority is a
integer value. tpXXX values will be displayed in the grid.

* You can also act on all threads: Kill All, Stop All and Resume All.


Questions:
------------------
1. Is there any other synchronization methods that FPC supports?

2. Is there a platform independent way of creating a Mutex? eg: A
CreateMutex() function that maps to each platforms specific
implementation. Something like the TCriticalSection class.

3. Same as (2), but for Semaphores.


-- 
Graeme Geldenhuys
General error, hit any user to continue.