From: Logan Capaldo <logancapaldo@...>
Date: 2006-04-25T01:19:43+09:00
Subject: Re: How do threads and join work?


On Apr 23, 2006, at 7:35 AM, Pat Maddox wrote:

> Right, I mentioned that in my OP.  I want to know if there's a way to
> get join-like behavior - do not terminate the program until that
> thread has finished executing - without blocking.

Have you considered the possibility that you're either a) doing  
things in the wrong order or b) have your infinite loop in the wrong  
thread.

You can just make #join the last thing you do, that's effectively  
"non-blocking"

e.g.

t = Thread.start { ... }

# do other stuff in main thread

t.join # no code follows this anyway


Or if the thread should drive the running of the other stuff:

require 'mutex'
m = Mutex.new
is_running = true

t = Thread.start do
     while getting_stuff_or_whatever
         do_stuff( )
     end
     # we stopped getting stuff
     m.synchronize { is_running = false }
end

local_running = nil
m.synchronize { local_running = is_running }

while local_running
    do_other_stuff
    m.synchronize do
       unless is_running
           local_running = false
       end
    end
end

Of course this example is silly you should probably use a queue