StackThreads/MP: version 0.77 User's Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction

StackThreads/MP provides fine-grain multithreading in GNU C/C++, without a sophisticated preprocessor or a native code generator specifically implemented for multithreading. Instead, it works with unmodified GNU C compiler and preprocessor.

With StackThreads/MP, programmers can parallelize existing C code. Unlike traditional thread libraries such as Pthreads, StackThreads/MP supports fine-grain threads, threads whose granularities are much smaller than typical threads in traditional thread libraries. StackThreads/MP creates and finishes a thread with a very small overhead (about 10 RISC instructions). Thus it enables a programming style in which a thread is dynamically created when an independent task is identified. This allows a natural description of many parallel programs, such as parallel divide-and-conquer.

Other goals of StackThreads include (1) help parallel language developers implement parallel primitives, (2) provide common runtime framework in which multiple parallel languages can inter-operate, and (3) propose minimal changes to the current calling standard so that any standard-conforming languages support a common multithreading model in future.