Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Hello,

    I am not clear under standing the difference between epicsThreads and pthread. In developing asyn based device support, What i should be used?

  For example i make some calculation in separate thread, which was talking long time and i want to do other work in parallel.  Should i use pthread or epicsThread?

Hi Vikram,

The epicsThread API is part of the OSI layer, which adds a common EPICS API to operating system services. (E.g., threads, timers, semaphores, ...)
This ensures portability of code across all systems and architectures supported by EPICS.

For things in the OSI layer, there is usually a POSIX implementation, which is used on POSIX compliant platforms. In many cases vxWorks, RTEMS, or Windows use a different implementation for the same feature.

So:
If you use epicsThread, your code will run on all EPICS systems.
If you use pthread, your code will only run on POSIX compliant systems.

Please use the OSI APIs whenever possible, to allow as many people as possible to use your code.

HTH,
~Ralph