README

         LuaTask 1.6.4 - "Multitasking" support Library
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THE IDEA:

LuaTask implements a concurrent and independent Lua execution environment model.

We choose the "task" name to avoid confusion with "lua threads".

The program calling luaopen_task() becomes the "main" task.

Each "task" started by the main one ( by calling task.create()), has an independent lua state, own message queue and execution os thread.

Each task is represented by a number starting at 1 ( 1 is the main task).

The internal task list grows as it is necessary. Currently there is no list size limit.

WIN32 THREADS

The first implementation ( and the current one selected with NATV_WIN32) called the Win32 APIs direct from syncos.c and doesn't support cancel. When I tried to implement the cancel method and after looking for alternatives to the infame TerminateThread, I decided to use as an option the Pthreads-Win32 library. Pthreads-Win32 library (2.7.0) implements thread cancellation with and without QueueUserAPCEx. QueueUserAPCEx (by Panagiotis E. Hadjidoukas) is used for true async cancelation of threads (including blocked threads).

DOCUMENTATION

Inside the doc directory you can find a manual and a reference guide.

AUTHORS:

LuaTask have been developed by Daniel Quintela. http://www.soongsoft.com mailto:dq@soongsoft.com