9 years, 3 months ago.

Thread interleaving question

Hi, I'm working on some threaded code. One thread processes input/output, while the main thread executes long_add, a dummy function. Code here:

main.cpp

#include "mbed.h"
#include "MODSERIAL.h"
#include "rtos.h"

DigitalOut led1(LED1);
DigitalOut led2(LED2);
MODSERIAL In(p13, p14); // serial object to read data coming in
MODSERIAL Out(p9, p10); // serial object to send data
MODSERIAL pc(USBTX, USBRX);
Timer in_timer;
Timer out_timer;
Timer print_timer;
int dataIn[32];
int dataOut[32];
osThreadId mainThreadID;


void io_thread(void const *args) {

    for(int ii=0; ii<32; ii++) {
       // pc.printf("ii is %d\r\n", ii);
        Out.putc(ii);
    }
    
    int jj = 0;
    while (In.readable() && jj < 32) {
        //pc.printf("jj is %d\r\n", jj);
        dataIn[jj]=In.getc();
        jj++;
    }
    pc.printf("Time in io_thread: %f \r\n", (float)out_timer.read_us());
    osSignalSet(mainThreadID, 0x1);
 
}



void long_add() {
    int i = 0;
    while ( i < 10000) {
        int j = 0;
        while (j < 100) {
            j += 1;
        }
        i += 1;
    }
}
    

int main()
{
    mainThreadID = osThreadGetId();

   // pc.baud(9600);
    In.baud(921600);
    Out.baud(921600);
    pc.baud(921600);
    in_timer.start();
    long_add();
    pc.printf("In time: %f \r\n", (float)in_timer.read_us());
    
    out_timer.start();
    Thread thread(out_thread);
    
    long_add();
    osSignalWait(0x1, osWaitForever);
 //   float temp2=out_timer.read_us();
    //pc.printf("In time: %f \r\n", (float)out_timer.read_us());
 
}

By itself, the I/O thread function takes 450 us and long_add takes 417 us. However, with threading long_add takes only 420 us, while the I/O function takes an additional 600 us to run; I expected long_add would finish around 900 due to the interleaving, but it seems as if there's barely any interleaving happening. Is this a thread scheduling quirk, or is there something wrong with our implementation?

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