Threads are created in the Windows API using the CreateThread() function, and—just as in Pthreads—a set of attributes for the thread is passed to this function. These attributes include security information, the size of the stack, and a flag that can be set to indicate if the thread is to start in a suspended state.
In this program, we use the default values for these attributes. (The default values do not initially set the thread to a suspended state and instead make it eligible to be run by the CPU scheduler.) Once the summation thread is created, the parent must wait for it to complete before outputting the value of Sum, as the value is set by the summation thread
#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
DWORD Sum; /* data is shared by the thread(s) */
/* the thread runs in this separate function */
DWORD WINAPI Summation(LPVOID Param)
{
DWORD Upper = *(DWORD*)Param;
for (DWORD i = 0; i <= Upper; i++)
Sum += i;
return 0;
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
DWORD ThreadId;
HANDLE ThreadHandle;
int Param;
if (argc != 2) {
fprintf(stderr,"An integer parameter is required\n");
return -1;
}
Param = atoi(argv[1]);
if (Param < 0) {
fprintf(stderr,"An integer >= 0 is required\n");
return -1;
}
/* create the thread */
ThreadHandle = CreateThread(
NULL, /* default security attributes */
0, /* default stack size */
Summation, /* thread function */
&Param, /* parameter to thread function */
0, /* default creation flags */
&ThreadId); /* returns the thread identifier */
if (ThreadHandle != NULL) {
/* now wait for the thread to finish */
WaitForSingleObject(ThreadHandle,INFINITE);
/* close the thread handle */
CloseHandle(ThreadHandle);
printf("sum = %d\n",Sum);
}
}