Thread-Specific Storage

The book has now been published and the content of this chapter has likely changed substanstially.

How can thread-unaware code access data specific to the thread.

Provide a 'logically global' object that provides access to a storage area specific to that thread.

The Thread-Specific Storage design pattern allows multiple threads to use one 'logically global' access point to retreive an object that is local to a thread, without incurring locking overhead on each object access.

The benefits of using Thread-Specific Storage pattern include efficiency, reusability, ease of use and portability. But it encourages the use of (thread specific) global objects. It also restricts implementation objects.

Thread-Specific Storage

Further Reading