C++11 thread-safe queue

Question

A project I'm working on uses multiple threads to do work on a collection of files. Each thread can add files to the list of files to be processed, so I put together (what I thought was) a thread-safe queue. Relevant portions follow:

// qMutex is a std::mutex intended to guard the queue
// populatedNotifier is a std::condition_variable intended to
//                   notify waiting threads of a new item in the queue

void FileQueue::enqueue(std::string&& filename)
{
    std::lock_guard<std::mutex> lock(qMutex);
    q.push(std::move(filename));

    // Notify anyone waiting for additional files that more have arrived
    populatedNotifier.notify_one();
}

std::string FileQueue::dequeue(const std::chrono::milliseconds& timeout)
{
    std::unique_lock<std::mutex> lock(qMutex);
    if (q.empty()) {
        if (populatedNotifier.wait_for(lock, timeout) == std::cv_status::no_timeout) {
            std::string ret = q.front();
            q.pop();
            return ret;
        }
        else {
            return std::string();
        }
    }
    else {
        std::string ret = q.front();
        q.pop();
        return ret;
    }
}

However, I am occasionally segfaulting inside the if (...wait_for(lock, timeout) == std::cv_status::no_timeout) { } block, and inspection in gdb indicates that the segfaults are occurring because the queue is empty. How is this possible? It was my understanding that wait_for only returns cv_status::no_timeout when it has been notified, and this should only happen after FileQueue::enqueue has just pushed a new item to the queue.

Answer 1

It is best to make the condition (monitored by your condition variable) the inverse condition of a while-loop: while(!some_condition). Inside this loop, you go to sleep if your condition fails, triggering the body of the loop.

This way, if your thread is awoken--possibly spuriously--your loop will still check the condition before proceeding. Think of the condition as the state of interest, and think of the condition variable as more of a signal from the system that this state might be ready. The loop will do the heavy lifting of actually confirming that it's true, and going to sleep if it's not.

I just wrote a template for an async queue, hope this helps. Here, q.empty() is the inverse condition of what we want: for the queue to have something in it. So it serves as the check for the while loop.

#ifndef SAFE_QUEUE
#define SAFE_QUEUE

#include <queue>
#include <mutex>
#include <condition_variable>

// A threadsafe-queue.
template <class T>
class SafeQueue
{
public:
  SafeQueue(void)
    : q()
    , m()
    , c()
  {}

  ~SafeQueue(void)
  {}

  // Add an element to the queue.
  void enqueue(T t)
  {
    std::lock_guard<std::mutex> lock(m);
    q.push(t);
    c.notify_one();
  }

  // Get the "front"-element.
  // If the queue is empty, wait till a element is avaiable.
  T dequeue(void)
  {
    std::unique_lock<std::mutex> lock(m);
    while(q.empty())
    {
      // release lock as long as the wait and reaquire it afterwards.
      c.wait(lock);
    }
    T val = q.front();
    q.pop();
    return val;
  }

private:
  std::queue<T> q;
  mutable std::mutex m;
  std::condition_variable c;
};
#endif