Re: [PATCH] builtin/index-pack.c: Fix some pthread_t misuse

Ramsay Jones [off-list ref] writes:

However, pthread_t is intended to be an opaque (implementation defined)
type. For example, an implementation may choose to use a structure to
implement the type.  Therefore, assigning zero (or any other constant)
to a pthread_t is not supported in general.
...
Note that, for the same reason given above, you can not, in general,
directly compare pthread_t handles with the built-in equality operator.
In order to compare pthread_t's for equality, the POSIX standard requires
the use of pthread_equal().

Thanks, the above analysis all sound sensible.

I do not think it matters in *this* case, but if a loop iterates
over an array of things with a field of type pthread_t in it, whose
element may or may not be valid, and wants to mark the validity of
an element with the value of its pthread_t field, what is the proper
way to do so?  I.e.

	for (i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(thread_data); i++) {
		if (pthread_invalid(thread_data[i].thread)
			continue; /* not used */
        	if (!pthread_equal(self, thread_data[i].thread))
                	continue; /* not me */
		/* ah, this is mine! */
                ...
	}

Perhaps the answer is "Don't do it" and that is perfectly fine, but
does Nguyen's code rely on the final clean-up (assignment with 0 you
are removing with this patch) to mark that these elements are no
longer relevant?