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Document number: N4033

Date: 2014-05-23

synchronized_value for associating a mutex with a value

by Anthony Williams

Excerpt:

A couple of years ago I wrote an article for Dr Dobb's Journal discussing a synchronized_value template to associate a mutex with a value. I'd like to propose that template for standardization, with a few modifications.

The basic idea is that synchronized_value<T> stores a value of type T and a mutex. It then exposes a pointer interface, such that derefencing the pointer yields a special wrapper type that holds a lock on the mutex, and that can be implicitly converted to T for reading, and which forwards any values assigned to the assignment operator of the underlying T for writing. There is also an arrow operator which allows member functions on the wrapped value to be called...