[omniORB] Is CORBA::BOA::impl_is_ready(0,0) really blocking?

[Visscher, Bruce]

The following code is compiled against a recent (just prior to 4.0.4)
CVS snapshot on OpenVMS 7.3.  [The file names and locations have been
changed to protect the guilty]:

---------------------------- boaquitter.cxx ----------------------------
#include <omniORB4/CORBA.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>

void f(void*) {
    omni_thread::sleep(5);
    ::system(
    "copy/log anode::adevice:[dir.subdir]afile.dat []afile.new");
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
    CORBA::ORB* orb=CORBA::ORB_init(argc, argv);
    CORBA::BOA* boa=orb->BOA_init(argc, argv, "omniORB4_BOA");
    omni_thread* child=omni_thread::create(&f);
    boa->impl_is_ready();
    ::printf("should never reach here!\n");
}
---------------------------- boaquitter.cxx ----------------------------

This results in "should never reach here!" appearing on the screen.

I think the reason is that there isn't a predicate associated with the
omni_condition so the ::system call causes a spurious interrupt to
unblock the pthread_cond_wait call that is used in the implementation of
impl_is_ready.

It is my understanding that POSIX threads implementations are allowed to
let this happen (which is why pthread condition users are supposed to
have a predicate that they can check to see if the condition was really
signaled).

Is my understanding correct?

The good news is that CORBA::ORB::run() does seem to have an obvious
predicate so if I change the above to use orb->run() instead of
boa->impl_is_ready() the program doesn't exit.

Since the BOA is passe` then maybe this wouldn't be worth fixing. I'm
just really surprised I never discovered this before.  OTOH, it is
pretty surprising behavior and there might be a lot of existing code
out there that is relying on CORBA::BOA::impl_is_ready to keep a server
process running.

Bruce

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