For-loop threading methods

Windows Thread Programming : Multithreaded programming is coming more to the fore with the Intel Pentium 4's support of Hyper-Threading Technology. The approach you choose for thread synchronization--using locks or lock-free--depends on the type of application you're building. Learn more in this article on software multithreading and multithreaded programming.

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by Jeff Andrews, application engineer, Intel Corp.

Explore different methods for threading a "for-loop," learning how to tailor your application to take best advantage of the Hyper-Threading Technology enabled.

Developers rejoice: When it comes to creating and synchronizing threads there are several Microsoft Windows APIs from which to choose. Knowing which of these methods is best for threading a for-loop is not always easy to determine.

Adding to the available options, Intel® compilers offer OpenMP support, providing an additional method for easy threading. While this method is the simplest and produces the most readable code, in a given case it may not be practical to use it. When best possible performance is required, then too OpenMP may not be the best solution.

In this article I will describe these different methods, explaining which is best suited for a given usage model.