7. Using MySQL++ in a Multithreaded Program
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## 7. Using MySQL++ in a Multithreaded Program

MySQL++ is not “thread safe” in any meaningful sense. MySQL++ contains very little code that actively prevents trouble with threads, and all of it is optional. We have done some work in MySQL++ to make thread safety achievable, but it doesn’t come for free.

The main reason for this is that MySQL++ is generally I/O-bound, not processor-bound. That is, if your program’s bottleneck is MySQL++, the ultimate cause is usually the I/O overhead of using a client-server database. Doubling the number of threads will just let your program get back to waiting for I/O twice as fast. Since threads are evil and generally can’t help MySQL++, the only optional thread awareness features we turn on in the shipping version of MySQL++ are those few that have no practical negative consequences. Everything else is up to you, the programmer, to evaluate and enable as and when you need it.

We’re going to assume that you either agree with these views but find yourself needing to use threads for some other reason, or are foolishly disregarding these facts and are going to use threads anyway. Our purpose here is limited to setting down the rules for avoiding problems with MySQL++ in a multi-threaded program. We won’t go into the broader issues of thread safety outside the scope of MySQL++. You will need a grounding in threads in general to get the full value of this advice.

### 7.1. Build Issues

Before you can safely use MySQL++ with threads, there are several things you must do to get a thread-aware build:

1. Build MySQL++ itself with thread awareness turned on.

   On Linux, Cygwin and Unix (OS X, *BSD, Solaris...), pass the `--enable-thread-check` flag to the `configure` script. Beware, this is only a request to the `configure` script to look for thread support on your system, not a requirement to do or die: if the script doesn’t find what it needs to do threading, MySQL++ will just get built without thread support. See `README-Unix.txt` for more details.

   On Windows, if you use the Visual C++ project files or the MinGW Makefile that comes with the MySQL++ distribution, threading is always turned on, due to the nature of Windows.

   If you build MySQL++ in some other way, such as with Dev-Cpp (based on MinGW) you’re on your own to enable thread awareness.

2. Link your program to a thread-aware build of the MySQL C API library.

   If you use a binary distribution of MySQL on Unixy systems, you usually get two different versions of the MySQL C API library, one with thread support and one without. These are typically called `libmysqlclient` and `libmysqlclient_r`, the latter being the thread-safe one. (The “`_r`” means reentrant.)

   If you’re using the Windows binary distribution of MySQL, there are two versions of the client library, but both are thread aware. One just has debugging symbols, and the other doesn’t. See `README-Visual-C++.txt` or `README-MinGW.txt` for details.

   If you build MySQL from source, you might only get one version of the MySQL C API library, and it can have thread awareness or not, depending on your configuration choices. This is the case with Cygwin, where you currently have no choice but to build the C API library from source. (See `README-Cygwin.txt`.)

3. Enable threading in your program’s build options.

   This is different for every platform, but it’s usually the case that you don’t get thread-aware builds by default. Depending on the platform, you might need to change compiler options, linker options, or both. See your development environment’s documentation, or study how MySQL++ itself turns on thread-aware build options when requested.

### 7.2. Connection Management

The MySQL C API underpinning MySQL++ does not allow multiple concurrent queries on a single connection. You can run into this problem in a single-threaded program, too, which is why we cover the details elsewhere, in Section 3.16, “Concurrent Queries on a Connection”. It’s a thornier problem when using threads, though.

The simple fix is to just create a separarate `Connection` object for each thread that needs to make database queries. This works well if you have a small number of threads that need to make queries, and each thread uses its connection often enough that the server doesn’t time out waiting for queries.[13]

If you have lots of threads or the frequency of queries is low, the connection management overhead will be excessive. To avoid that, we created the `ConnectionPool` class. It manages a pool of `Connection` objects like library books: a thread checks one out, uses it, and then returns it to the pool as soon as it’s done with it. This keeps the number of active connections low.

`ConnectionPool` has three methods that you need to override in a subclass to make it concrete: `create()`, `destroy()`, and `max_idle_time()`. These overrides let the base class delegate operations it can’t successfully do itself to its subclass. The `ConnectionPool` can’t know how to `create()` the `Connection` objects, because that depends on how your program gets login parameters, server information, etc. `ConnectionPool` also makes the subclass `destroy()` the `Connection` objects it created; it could assume that they’re simply allocated on the heap with `new`, but it can’t be sure, so the base class delegates destruction, too. Finally, the base class can’t know what the connection idle timeout policy in the client would make the most sense, so it asks its subclass via the `max_idle_time()` method.

`ConnectionPool` also allows you to override `release()`, if needed. For simple uses, it’s not necessary to override this.

In designing your `ConnectionPool` derivative, you might consider making it a Singleton (see Gamma et al.), since there should only be one pool in a program.

Here is an example showing how to use connection pools with threads:

    #include "cmdline.h"
    #include "threads.h"

    #include <iostream>

    using namespace std;

    // Define a concrete ConnectionPool derivative.  Takes connection
    // parameters as inputs to its ctor, which it uses to create the
    // connections we're called upon to make.  Note that we also declare
    // a global pointer to an object of this type, which we create soon
    // after startup; this should be a common usage pattern, as what use
    // are multiple pools?
    class SimpleConnectionPool : public mysqlpp::ConnectionPool
    {
    public:
        // The object's only constructor
        SimpleConnectionPool(const char* db, const char* server,
                const char* user, const char* password) :
        db_(db ? db : ""),
        server_(server ? server : ""),
        user_(user ? user : ""),
        password_(password ? password : "")
        {
        }

        // The destructor.  We _must_ call ConnectionPool::clear() here,
        // because our superclass can't do it for us.
        ~SimpleConnectionPool()
        {
            clear();
        }

    protected:
        // Superclass overrides
        mysqlpp::Connection* create()
        {
            // Create connection using the parameters we were passed upon
            // creation.  This could be something much more complex, but for
            // the purposes of the example, this suffices.
            cout.put('C'); cout.flush(); // indicate connection creation
            return new mysqlpp::Connection(
                    db_.empty() ? 0 : db_.c_str(),
                    server_.empty() ? 0 : server_.c_str(),
                    user_.empty() ? 0 : user_.c_str(),
                    password_.empty() ? "" : password_.c_str());
        }

        void destroy(mysqlpp::Connection* cp)
        {
            // Our superclass can't know how we created the Connection, so
            // it delegates destruction to us, to be safe.
            cout.put('D'); cout.flush(); // indicate connection destruction
            delete cp;
        }

        unsigned int max_idle_time()
        {
            // Set our idle time at an example-friendly 3 seconds.  A real
            // pool would return some fraction of the server's connection
            // idle timeout instead.
            return 3;
        }

    private:
        // Our connection parameters
        std::string db_, server_, user_, password_;
    };
    SimpleConnectionPool* poolptr = 0;

    #if defined(HAVE_THREADS)
    static thread_return_t CALLBACK_SPECIFIER
    worker_thread(thread_arg_t running_flag)
    {
        // Ask the underlying C API to allocate any per-thread resources it
        // needs, in case it hasn't happened already.  In this particular
        // program, it's almost guaranteed that the grab() call below will
        // create a new connection the first time through, and thus allocate
        // these resources implicitly, but there's a nonzero chance that
        // this won't happen.  Anyway, this is an example program, meant to
        // show good style, so we take the high road and ensure the
        // resources are allocated before we do any queries.
        mysqlpp::Connection::thread_start();

        // Pull data from the sample table a bunch of times, releasing the
        // connection we use each time.
        for (size_t i = 0; i < 6; ++i) {
            // Go get a free connection from the pool, or create a new one
            // if there are no free conns yet.
            mysqlpp::Connection* cp = poolptr->grab();
            if (!cp) {
                cerr << "Failed to get a connection from the pool!" << endl;
                break;
            }

            // Pull a copy of the sample stock table and print a dot for
            // each row in the result set.
            mysqlpp::Query query(cp->query("select * from stock"));
            mysqlpp::StoreQueryResult res = query.store();
            for (size_t j = 0; j < res.num_rows(); ++j) {
                cout.put('.');
            }

            // Immediately release the connection once we're done using it.
            // If we don't, the pool can't detect idle connections reliably.
            poolptr->release(cp);

            // Delay 1-4 seconds before doing it again.  Because this can
            // delay longer than the idle timeout, we'll occasionally force
            // the creation of a new connection on the next loop.
            sleep(rand() % 4 + 1);
        }

        // Tell main() that this thread is no longer running
        *reinterpret_cast<bool*>(running_flag) = false;

        // Release the per-thread resources before we exit
        mysqlpp::Connection::thread_end();

        return 0;
    }
    #endif

    int
    main(int argc, char *argv[])
    {
    #if defined(HAVE_THREADS)
        // Get database access parameters from command line
        const char* db = 0, *server = 0, *user = 0, *pass = "";
        if (!parse_command_line(argc, argv, &db, &server, &user, &pass)) {
            return 1;
        }

        // Create the pool and grab a connection.  We do it partly to test
        // that the parameters are good before we start doing real work, and
        // partly because we need a Connection object to call thread_aware()
        // on to check that it's okay to start doing that real work.  This
        // latter check should never fail on Windows, but will fail on most
        // other systems unless you take positive steps to build with thread
        // awareness turned on.  See README-*.txt for your platform.
        poolptr = new SimpleConnectionPool(db, server, user, pass);
        try {
            mysqlpp::Connection* cp = poolptr->grab();
            if (!cp->thread_aware()) {
                cerr << "MySQL++ wasn't built with thread awareness!  " <<
                        argv[0] << " can't run without it." << endl;
                return 1;
            }
            poolptr->release(cp);
        }
        catch (mysqlpp::Exception& e) {
            cerr << "Failed to set up initial pooled connection: " <<
                    e.what() << endl;
            return 1;
        }

        // Setup complete.  Now let's spin some threads...
        cout << endl << "Pool created and working correctly.  Now to do "
                "some real work..." << endl;
        srand(time(0));
        bool running[] = {
                true, true, true, true, true, true, true,
                true, true, true, true, true, true, true };
        const size_t num_threads = sizeof(running) / sizeof(running[0]);
        size_t i;
        for (i = 0; i < num_threads; ++i) {
            if (int err = create_thread(worker_thread, running + i)) {
                cerr << "Failed to create thread " << i <<
                        ": error code " << err << endl;
                return 1;
            }
        }

        // Test the 'running' flags every second until we find that they're
        // all turned off, indicating that all threads are stopped.
        cout.put('W'); cout.flush(); // indicate waiting for completion
        do {
            sleep(1);
            i = 0;
            while (i < num_threads && !running[i]) ++i;
        }
        while (i < num_threads);
        cout << endl << "All threads stopped!" << endl;

        // Shut it all down...
        delete poolptr;
        cout << endl;
    #else
        (void)argc;     // warning squisher
        cout << argv[0] << " requires that threads be enabled!" << endl;
    #endif

        return 0;
    }

The example works with both Windows native threads and with POSIX threads.[14] Because thread-enabled builds are only the default on Windows, it’s quite possible for this program to do nothing on other platforms. See above for instructions on enabling a thread-aware build.

If you write your code without checks for thread support like you see in the code above and link it to a build of MySQL++ that isn’t thread-aware, it will still try to run. The threading mechanisms fall back to a single-threaded mode when threads aren’t available. A particular danger is that the mutex lock mechanism used to keep the pool’s internal data consistent while multiple threads access it will just quietly become a no-op if MySQL++ is built without thread support. We do it this way because we don’t want to make thread support a MySQL++ prerequisite. And, although it would be of limited value, this lets you use `ConnectionPool` in single-threaded programs.

You might wonder why we don’t just work around this weakness in the C API transparently in MySQL++ instead of suggesting design guidelines to avoid it. We’d like to do just that, but how?

If you consider just the threaded case, you could argue for the use of mutexes to protect a connection from trying to execute two queries at once. The cure is worse than the disease: it turns a design error into a performance sap, as the second thread is blocked indefinitely waiting for the connection to free up. Much better to let the program get the “Commands out of sync” error, which will guide you to this section of the manual, which tells you how to avoid the error with a better design.

Another option would be to bury `ConnectionPool` functionality within MySQL++ itself, so the library could create new connections at need. That’s no good because the above example is the most complex in MySQL++, so if it were mandatory to use connection pools, the whole library would be that much more complex to use. The whole point of MySQL++ is to make using the database easier. MySQL++ offers the connection pool mechanism for those that really need it, but an option it must remain.

### 7.3. Helper Functions

`Connection` has several thread-related static methods you might care about when using MySQL++ with threads.

You can call `Connection::thread_aware()` to determine whether MySQL++ and the underlying C API library were both built to be thread-aware. Again, I stress that thread awareness is not the same thing as thread safety: it’s still up to you to make your code thread-safe. If this method returns true, it just means it’s possible to achieve thread-safety.

If your program’s connection-management strategy allows a thread to use a `Connection` object that another thread created before it creates a connection of its own, you must call `Connection::thread_start()` from that thread before it does anything with MySQL++. If a thread creates a new connection before it uses a connection created by another thread, though, it doesn’t need to call `Connection::thread_start()` because the per-thread resources this allocates are implicitly created upon creation of a connection if necessary.

This is why the simple `Connection`-per-thread strategy works: each thread that uses MySQL++ creates a connection in that thread, implicitly allocating the per-thread resources at the same time. You never need to call `Connection::thread_start()` in this instance. It’s not harmful to call this function, just unnecessary.

A good counterexample is using `ConnectionPool`: you probably do need to call `Connection::thread_start()` at the start of each worker thread because you can’t usually tell whether you’re getting a new connection from the pool, or reusing one that another thread returned to the pool after allocating it. It’s possible to conceive of situations where you can guarantee that each pool user always allocates a fresh connection the first time it calls `ConnectionPool::grab()`, but thread programming is complex enough that it’s best to take the safe path and always call `Connection::thread_start()` early in each worker thread.

Finally, there’s the complementary method, `Connection::thread_end()`. Strictly speaking, it’s not necessary to call this. The per-thread memory allocated by the C API is small, it doesn’t grow over time, and a typical thread is going to need this memory for its entire run time. Memory debuggers aren’t smart enough to know all this, though, so they will gripe about a memory leak unless you call this from each thread that uses MySQL++ before that thread exits.

Although its name suggests otherwise, `Connection::thread_id()` has nothing to do with anything in this chapter.

### 7.4. Sharing MySQL++ Data Structures

We’re in the process of making it safer to share MySQL++’s data structures across threads.

By way of illustration, let me explain a problem we had up until MySQL++ v3.0. When you issue a database query that returns rows, you also get information about the columns in each row. Since the column information is the same for each row in the result set, older versions of MySQL++ kept this information in the result set object, and each `Row` kept a pointer back to the result set object that created it so it could access this common data at need. This was fine as long as each result set object outlived the `Row` objects it returned. It required uncommon usage patterns to run into trouble in this area in a single-threaded program, but in a multi-threaded program it was easy. For example, there’s frequently a desire to let one connection do the queries, and other threads process the results. You can see how avoiding lifetime problems here would require a careful locking strategy.

We got around this in MySQL++ v3.0 by giving these shared data structures a lifetime independent of the result set object that intitially creates it. These shared data structures stick around until the last object needing them gets destroyed.

Although this is now a solved problem, I bring it up because there are likely other similar lifetime and sequencing problems waiting to be discovered inside MySQL++. If you would like to help us find these, by all means, share data between threads willy-nilly. We welcome your crash reports on the MySQL++ mailing list. But if you’d prefer to avoid problems, it’s better to keep all data about a query within a single thread. Between this and the previous section’s advice, you should be able to use threads with MySQL++ without trouble.

[13] By default, current MySQL servers have an 8 hour idle timeout on connections. It’s a configuration option, though, so your server may be set differently.

[14] The file `examples/threads.h` contains a few macros and such to abstract away the differences between the two threading models.

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