Which lock to use?

[fwilleke80]

Hello,

there is always something we managed to not get in touch with... for me, it's threading and locks...

In one of my classes, I have a maxon::KdTree. It is being rebuilt from time to time, depending on some factors. Then there are potentially multiple threads (from maxon::ParallelFor) that want to access the KdTree to call its FindNearest() and FindRange() functions. These have to wait for the tree to be built, of course.

If I understand the concept of locks correctly, I would need to lock the KdTree while it is being rebuilt. But for the FindNearest() and FindRange() calls, I would need to wait for the KdTree being unlocked, but I would not need to lock it, as those functions are thread safe (if used right), is that correct? So, I looked at the Locks & Synchronization Manual, and I'm not sure which lock to use. It seems, maxon::Spinlock is not what I'm looking for.

Thanks for any tips & help,
Frank

[PluginStudent]

What you describe sounds like a job for maxon::RWSpinlock.

But, FindNearest() and FindRange() are not const, these functions may actually mutate the internal data (you can look at the source in kdtree.cpp). So be sure to use the threadIndex arguments.

[fwilleke80]

Always using the threadIndex, of course :-)
Thanks, I'll try that!