[aspell-devel] Mutex, for static objects

[Gary Setter]

Hi,

I'm a newbe concerning mutex objects. I tried implementing the
Mutex object for aspell - win32 port. I found that I was failing
to create the mutex when the lock was attempted in the
constructor of a static object, with one exception.

For Win32 console applications, the constructors for static
objects are called before main. That making a mutex at that time
would fail does not seem particularly odd to me. Because it can
fail at that time means that the code should just ignore the
failure. However, what if making a mutex fails after main is
called? What should be done? How can the program determine if the
failure is legitimate?

Does the unix version of aspell have the same situation? What
should be done when an attempt to lock via a mutex fails? Are
there other ways the code could be improved?

About the exception. In my port I have this defined in
typo_editdist.cpp.
static TypoInfoCache<TypoEditDistanceInfo>
typo_edit_dist_info_cache("keyboard");
For reasons unknown, its constructor can create a mutex.

For what it's worth, this is my (debug) code.
  class Mutex {
  private:
    Mutex(const Mutex &);
    void operator=(const Mutex &);
  HANDLE hMutex;
  SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES sec;
  public:
   Mutex() {
        sec.nLength= sizeof(sec);
    sec.lpSecurityDescriptor = 0;
    sec.bInheritHandle = false;
    hMutex = 0; }
  ~Mutex() {
   if (hMutex) unlock();}
    void lock() {
   hMutex =  CreateMutex(&sec,0,0);
   if (!hMutex) {
    DWORD err = GetLastError();
    char buff[131];

FormatMessage(FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM,0,err,0,buff,sizeof(buff
),0);
    printf(buff);
   }
  }
    void unlock() {
   ReleaseMutex(hMutex); hMutex = 0;}
  };

Thanks for your help,
Gary

PS. I asked before how to test a locking via a mutex and received
no replies. I ask again. Can anyone tell me how to go about
verifying this feature?