The file <ext/concurrence.h> contains all the higher-level constructs for playing with threads. In contrast to the atomics layer, the concurrence layer consists largely of types. All types are defined within namespace __gnu_cxx.

These types can be used in a portable manner, regardless of the specific environment. They are carefully designed to provide optimum efficiency and speed, abstracting out underlying thread calls and accesses when compiling for single-threaded situations (even on hosts that support multiple threads.)

The enumerated type _Lock_policy details the set of available locking policies: _S_single, _S_mutex, and _S_atomic.

The compile-time constant __default_lock_policy is set to one of the three values above, depending on characteristics of the host environment and the current compilation flags.

Two more datatypes make up the rest of the interface: __mutex, and __scoped_lock.

The scoped lock idiom is well-discussed within the C++ community. This version takes a __mutex reference, and locks it during construction of __scoped_lock and unlocks it during destruction. This is an efficient way of locking critical sections, while retaining exception-safety. These types have been superseded in the ISO C++ 2011 standard by the mutex and lock types defined in the header <mutex>.

Two functions and one type form the base of atomic support.

The type _Atomic_word is a signed integral type supporting atomic operations.

The two functions functions are:

_Atomic_word
__exchange_and_add_dispatch(volatile _Atomic_word*, int);

void
__atomic_add_dispatch(volatile _Atomic_word*, int);

Both of these functions are declared in the header file <ext/atomicity.h>, and are in namespace __gnu_cxx.

These functions forward to one of several specialized helper functions, depending on the circumstances. For instance,

__exchange_and_add_dispatch

Calls through to either of:

However, only __exchange_and_add_dispatch and __atomic_add_dispatch should be used. These functions can be used in a portable manner, regardless of the specific environment. They are carefully designed to provide optimum efficiency and speed, abstracting out atomic accesses when they are not required (even on hosts that support compiler intrinsics for atomic operations.)

In addition, there are two macros

_GLIBCXX_READ_MEM_BARRIER

_GLIBCXX_WRITE_MEM_BARRIER

Which expand to the appropriate write and read barrier required by the host hardware and operating system.