On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 06:23:45PM -0500, McGarvey, Kevin wrote:
> Based on what you wrote, the documentation is incorrect. It says the
> following:
>
> "You must not call it when any other thread in the program (i.e. a
> thread sharing the same memory) is running. This doesn't just mean no
> other thread that is using libcurl. Because curl_global_init() calls
> functions of other libraries that are similarly thread unsafe, it could
> conflict with any other thread that uses these other libraries."
>
> But what you are saying here is that the issue is confined to multiple
> threads running curl_global_init.

Not quite--multiple threads running curl_global_init are verboten, but
so are multiple threads running any of the other non-thread-safe functions
that curl_global_init itself calls (or potentially any other dependencies
of those calls). So putting curl_global_init into a critical section isn't
enough in the general case.

For example, an app could spawn three threads, two of which call
curl_global_init in a critical section (thereby preventing unsafe usage),
but the third calling SSLeay_add_ssl_algorithms() which isn't protected
(I'm assuming that's one of the non-thread-safe OpenSSL calls at issue
here). That could mean that two threads call SSLeay_add_ssl_algorithms()
simultaneously.

> The scenario that Georg described is exactly what we are doing. We have
> a C++ library that is plugged in to a Java Virtual Machine via JNI. We
> can use a mutex to single-thread calls to curl_global_init, but we are
> not the first thread running and there will be many threads running that
> are not ours when we call curl_global_init.
>
> Are we OK as long as two threads don't call curl_global init
> simultaneously?

Not in the general case, but it might be in your specific case if you have
control over the apps using your plug-in. But if you don't, and some
user decides to use your curl plug-in and OpenSSL-Java in his app at the
same time in different threads--boom!

>>> Dan

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