Lack of g++ symbol visibility support in Boost.Thread

[rbock@…]

Compiling code which includes boost/thread.hpp with

g++ -fvisibility=hidden

leads to a lack of visibility of symbols inside Boost.Thread. As a result, boost::thread_interrupted exception cannot be caught in the client code.

The attached example yields

Thread 0x60b050 caught something else Thread 0x60b3e0 caught something else

instead of

Thread 0x60b050 got interrupted Thread 0x60b3e0 got interrupted

More information on this topic can be found in the respective thread on boost:users mailing list, especially the following two postings:

​http://lists.boost.org/boost-users/2008/09/40268.php ​http://lists.boost.org/boost-users/2008/09/40270.php

[rbock@…]

Small sample, compile with g++ -fvisibility-hidden and link with the shared object instead of the static library

[Jürgen Hunold]

This is related to #2114. That issue contains a patch adding visibility support for most Boost Libraries.

[Scott Bailey <Bailey@…>]

created vs Boost v 1.42.0 to add visibility to boost::thread's exceptions

[Scott Bailey <Bailey@…>]

Description

thread_interrupted can't be caught when crossing shared object's boundaries when visibility is hidden.

Found In

Boost v1.40, v1.41, and 1.42

Recreating

Here is the setup:

MyCommon.so

• this lib contains some basic classes, one of which (baseTRx) has a boost::thread.
• this lib includes boost_system and boost_thread using the --whole-archive flag (linux) and equivalent for darwin and win -- this was done to minimize the number of files the customer would receive, among other reasons...

MyTRx.so

• this lib contains a class derived from baseTRx (myTRx).
• links to MyCommon

MyEXE

• this contains main().
• links to MyCommon
• loads MyTRx at run time.
• creates an instance of myTRx.
• signals MyEXE (via interupt()) when its time to cleanly shut down

Using GCC 4.2 w/ -fvisibility=hidden, thread_interrupted isn't being caught in myTRx since it's being thrown from a different so with hidden visibility.

Possible Fixes

These are the options as I see them:

• push, then set visibility to default in the BOOST_ABI_PREFIX. Then pop in the BOOST_ABI_SUFFIX.
• add class decorators to modify visibility of exceptions

I provided a patch (thread_interrupted.patch​) for the second option. I am using this patch in a production environment.

Similar/possibly Related Defects

This is similar to the following defects:

• #2114 Patch for export symbols from shared library

[viboes]

Committed in trunk At revision: 75799

[viboes]

Committed in release at #76291