Pausing a thread under program control

[ray]

I would like, in a multi-threaded system, to be able to "Pause" a thread under direct program control from another thread.

That is to change a selected thread's "Flag" from "Normal" to "Paused" (and back again).

Has anybody any ideas about how to achieve this?

Is there say, a "System Operator" (such as [Paused] ) one can call perhaps?. (As in the "Threads Tool Pop-Up Menu" that toggles a thread between being Paused and Normal.)

Anybody got any suggestions?

Thanks

[crishog]

Have you tried using tokens? I have several instances where a child thread waits on a token, upon receiving it performs a specific action & then returns to wait on another instance of that token.

Works very well

[ray]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I have used tokens in the past in a loop, testing for the existence of the token each time around the loop, but this thread does not run in/as a loop.

So I would have to test for the token in multiple locations, spread throughout the code of the thread.

I will be using tokens to control the information passing between threads.

What I want to do is SUSPEND and then RESUME processing of ONE of the threads.

[crishog]

If you use a token with a negative value it can be repeatedly fetched without removing it from the pool. Therefore a few judiciously placed TGETs (using the positive value)in your sub-thread should be enough. As long at the value is in the pool the child thread will run.

Just TGET the negative value in the main thread - the child will pause when it gets to any of the TGETs of the positive value & you restart it by the main thread TPUTing the negative value back into the pool.

[ray]

Thanks again.
You say "Therefore a few judiciously placed TGETs"
The problem is that I will need a TGET in every process taking significant time in my thread, a lot, not a few. (at least a dozen, maybe more).

Tokens are very usefull and powerfull at communicating between threads.

I need something more like an OnEvent trap : onTokenRecieved

I suppose I could check for a token in a loop, and on recipe, signal a user defined error which could be trapped and acted on by the thread.

Thanks anyway