Thread (computer science)

smallest sequence of programmed instructions that can be managed independently by a scheduler

A thread in computer science is short for a thread of execution. Threads are a way for a program to split itself into two or more simultaneously (or pseudo-simultaneously) running tasks. Threads and processes differ from one operating system to another but, in general, a thread is contained inside a process and different threads in the same process share the same resources while different processes in the same multitasking operating system do not. Threads are lightweight, in terms of the system resources they consume, as compared with processes.

A process with two threads of execution.

Sources

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  • David R. Butenhof: Programming with POSIX Threads, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-63392-2
  • Bradford Nichols, Dick Buttlar, Jacqueline Proulx Farell: Pthreads Programming, O'Reilly & Associates, ISBN 1-56592-115-1
  • Charles J. Northrup: Programming with UNIX Threads, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-13751-0
  • Mark Walmsley: Multi-Threaded Programming in C++, Springer, ISBN 1-85233-146-1
  • Paul Hyde: Java Thread Programming, Sams, ISBN 0-672-31585-8
  • Bill Lewis: Threads Primer: A Guide to Multithreaded Programming, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-443698-9
  • Steve Kleiman, Devang Shah, Bart Smaalders: Programming With Threads, SunSoft Press, ISBN 0-13-172389-8
  • Pat Villani: Advanced WIN32 Programming: Files, Threads, and Process Synchronization, Harpercollins Publishers, ISBN 0-87930-563-0
  • Jim Beveridge, Robert Wiener: Multithreading Applications in Win32, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-44234-5
  • Thuan Q. Pham, Pankaj K. Garg: Multithreaded Programming with Windows NT, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-120643-5
  • Len Dorfman, Marc J. Neuberger: Effective Multithreading in OS/2, McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, ISBN 0-07-017841-0
  • Alan Burns, Andy Wellings: Concurrency in ADA, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-62911-X
  • Uresh Vahalia: Unix Internals: the New Frontiers, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-101908-2
  • Alan L. Dennis: .Net Multithreading , Manning Publications Company, ISBN 1-930110-54-5
  • Tobin Titus, Fabio Claudio Ferracchiati, Srinivasa Sivakumar, Tejaswi Redkar, Sandra Gopikrishna: C# Threading Handbook, Peer Information Inc, ISBN 1-86100-829-5
  • Tobin Titus, Fabio Claudio Ferracchiati, Srinivasa Sivakumar, Tejaswi Redkar, Sandra Gopikrishna: Visual Basic .Net Threading Handbook, Wrox Press Inc, ISBN 1-86100-713-2

Other websites

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