What is a thread in C++?

Threads provide a way to achieve parallelism and improve the overall performance of software applications. By dividing a program into multiple threads, different parts of the code can execute concurrently, effectively utilizing available CPU resources.

Creating and managing threads in C++ can be done using the thread class from the standard library. Here’s an example code snippet that demonstrates the basics of working with threads in C++:

#include <iostream>
#include <thread>

// Function to be executed by the thread
void threadFunction(){
    std::cout << "Thread running" << std::endl;
}

int main() {
    // Creating a new thread
    std::thread myThread(threadFunction);

    // Wait for the thread to complete
    myThread.join();

    // Output after the thread has finished
    std::cout << "Thread completed" << std::endl;

    return 0;
}

In the code above, we define a function threadFunction() that will be executed by the thread. We then create a new thread myThread and pass threadFunction as an argument to the thread constructor.

The join() function is called to wait for the thread to finish its execution. This ensures that the main thread waits until the created thread completes before moving forward.

Finally, after the thread has finished, a message is printed to indicate its completion.

Using threads in C++ allows developers to write more efficient and responsive programs that can take advantage of the available processing power. However, it’s important to handle synchronization and communication between threads carefully to avoid race conditions and other concurrency issues.

#C++ #Multithreading