deadlock in scm_join_thread(_timed)

["Julian Graham" <joolean@gmail.com>]

Hi everyone,

While I was testing and debugging some of the SRFI-18 code that Neil
and I were working on, I noticed a deadlock that happens in
scm_join_thread_timed.  I'm pretty sure it affects the 1.8 codebase as
well, although it's probably more common when doing timed joins.

Thread joining in Guile (1.9 or 1.8) works as follows:

1. If the target thread has exited, return.
2. Block on the target thread's join queue.
3. When woken (because of a pthread_cond_signal, a spurious pthreads
wakeup, or, in 1.9, a timeout expiration), check the target thread's
exit status -- if it has exited, return.
4. Otherwise, SCM_TICK.
5. Go to step 2.

The deadlock can happen if the thread exits during the tick, because
there's no check of the exit status before block_self is called again.
 I'm pretty sure that moving step 1 into the beginning of the loop
would fix this --  I can submit a patch against 1.8, 1.9, or both.
Let me know what you guys would like.


Regards,
Julian