Changes the guardsize attribute of the specified thread attributes object.
1 – C Binding
#include <pthread.h> int pthread_attr_setguardsize ( pthread_attr_t *attr, size_t guardsize);
2 – Arguments
attr Address of the thread attributes object whose guardsize attribute is to be modified. guardsize New value for the guardsize attribute of the thread attributes object specified by attr.
3 – Description
This routine uses the value specified in the guardsize argument to set the guardsize attribute of the thread attributes object specified in the attr argument. When creating a thread, use a thread attributes object to specify nondefault values for thread attributes. The guardsize attribute of a thread attributes object specifies the minimum size (in bytes) of the guard area for the stack of a new thread. A guard area, with its associated overflow warning area, can help a multithreaded program detect overflow of a thread's stack. A guard area is a region of no-access memory that the Threads Library allocates at the overflow end of the thread's stack, following the thread's overflow warning area. If the thread attempts to write in the overflow warning area, a stack overflow exception occurs. Your program can catch this exception and continue processing as long as the thread does not attempt to write in the guard area. When any thread attempts to access a memory location within the guard area, a memory addressing violation occurs without the possibility of recovery. A new thread can be created with a default guardsize attribute value. This value is platform dependent, but will always be at least one "hardware protection unit" (that is, at least one page). For more information, see this guide's platform-specific appendixes. After this routine is called, due to platform-specific factors the Threads Library might reserve a larger guard area for the new thread than was specified in the guardsize argument. See this guide's platform-specific appendixes for more information. The Threads Library allows your program to specify the size of a thread stack's guard area for two reasons: o When a thread allocates large data structures on its stack, a guard area with a size greater than the default size might be required to detect stack overflow. o Overflow protection of a thread's stack can potentially waste system resources, such as for an application that creates a large number of threads that will never overflow their stacks. Your multithreaded program can conserve system resources by "turning off" a thread's stack guard area-that is, by specifying a guardsize attribute of zero. If a thread is created using a thread attributes object whose stackaddr attribute is set (using the pthread_attr_setstackaddr() routine), this routine ignores the object's guardsize attribute and provides no thread stack overflow warning or guard area for the new thread.
4 – Return Values
If an error condition occurs, this routine returns an integer value indicating the type of error. Possible return values are as follows: Return Description 0 Successful completion. [EINVAL] The argument attr is not a valid thread attributes object, or the argument guardsize contains an invalid value.
5 – Associated Routines
pthread_attr_init() pthread_attr_getguardsize() pthread_attr_setstacksize() pthread_create()