QNX Momentics IDE User's Guide
This User's Guide describes version 8.0 of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that's part of the QNX Tool Suite.
QNX Software Development Platform
QNX SDP is a cross-compiling and debugging environment, including an IDE and command-line tools, for building binary images and programs for target boards running the QNX OS 8.0.
- Quickstart Guide
- System Architecture
  The System Architecture guide accompanies the QNX OS and is intended for both application developers and end-users.
- OS Components & Operations
- Graphics
- Programming
  - Getting Started with the QNX OS
    Getting Started with the QNX OS: A Guide for Realtime Programmers is intended to introduce you to the QNX OS and help you develop applications and resource managers for it.
    - Processes and Threads
      This chapter explains the concepts behind processes and threads, and the challenges of synchronization and scheduling. A thread is a flow of execution, and a process is a collection of threads. In the QNX OS, the schedulable entity is a thread, not a process.
      - Process and thread fundamentals
        Before we start talking about threads, processes, time slices, and all the other wonderful scheduling concepts, let's establish an analogy.
        A process as a house
        Let's base our analogy for processes and threads using a regular, everyday object: a house.
        The occupants as threads
        The people living in the house are the active objects—they're the ones using the various rooms, watching TV, cooking, taking showers, and so on. We'll soon see that's how threads behave.
        Back to processes and threads
        Just as a house occupies an area of real estate, a process occupies memory. And just as a house's occupants are free to go into any room they want, a process's threads all have common access to that memory. If a thread allocates something (mom goes out and buys a game), all the other threads immediately have access to it (because it's present in the common address space—it's in the house). Likewise, if the process allocates memory, this new memory is available to all the threads as well.
        Mutual exclusion
        If you want to take a shower, and there's someone already using the bathroom, you'll have to wait. How does a thread handle this?
        Priorities
        What if the bathroom is currently locked and a number of people are waiting to use it? Obviously, all the people are sitting around outside, waiting for whoever is in the bathroom to get out. The real question is, What happens when the door unlocks? Who gets to go next?
        Semaphores
        Let's move from the bathroom into the kitchen, since that's a socially acceptable location to have more than one person at the same time. In the kitchen, you may not want to have everyone in there at once. In fact, you probably want to limit the number of people you can have in the kitchen (too many cooks, and all that).
        A semaphore as a mutex
        We just asked the question Could you do it with a mutex? in relation to implementing a lock with a count, and the answer was no. How about the other way around? Could we use a semaphore as a mutex?
      - The kernel's role
        The house analogy is excellent for getting across the concept of synchronization, but it falls down in one major area. In our house, we had many threads running simultaneously. However in a single-processor system, only one thing can run at once.
      - Threads and processes
        Let's return to our discussion of threads and processes, this time from the perspective of a real live system. Then, we'll take a look at the function calls used to deal with threads and processes.
      - More on synchronization
      - Scheduling and the real world
        So far we've talked about scheduling policies and thread states, but we haven't said much yet about why and when things are rescheduled.
    - Message Passing
      In this chapter, we'll look at the most distinctive feature of QNX OS, message passing. Message passing lies at the heart of the operating system's microkernel architecture, giving the OS its modularity.
    - Interrupts
      In this chapter, we'll take a look at interrupts, how we deal with them under QNX OS, their impact on scheduling and realtime, and some interrupt-management strategies.
    - Resource Managers
      In this chapter, we'll take a look at what you need to understand in order to write a resource manager. Resource managers are another distintive feature of QNX OS that allow you to access services through standard POSIX calls.
    - Sample Programs
      This appendix contains the complete versions of some of the sample programs discussed in this book.
    - Glossary
  - Programmer's Guide
    The QNX OS Programmer's Guide covers a variety of topics that might interest developers who are building applications that will run under the QNX OS.
  - Writing a Resource Manager
- System Security Guide
  The QNX System Security Guide is intended for both system integrators who are responsible for the security of a QNX OS system and developers who want to create a QNX OS resource manager free from vulnerabilities.
- Utilities & Libraries
- Migrating to QNX OS 8.0
QNX Software in the Cloud
QNX Software in the Cloud enables developers to use the QNX OS in the Amazon cloud environment.
QNX Toolkit for Visual Studio Code
This User's Guide describes the QNX^® Toolkit for Visual Studio Code. The guide introduces you to the QNX Toolkit by explaining the QNX development environment and how to build, run, and debug your QNX^® Operating System (OS) applications and systems.
QNX Hypervisor User's Guide
This User's Guide explains the QNX hypervisor architecture and provides instructions for installing and running a QNX Hypervisor system, changing system components and configuration, and using hypervisor features such as virtual devices (vdevs).
Typographical Conventions, Support, and Licensing
This section describes the typographical conventions used throughout the documentation, explains how to obtain technical support, and provides some information about licensing.

The occupants as threads

QNX SDP8.0Getting Started with the QNX OSDeveloperUser

The people living in the house are the active objects—they're the ones using the various rooms, watching TV, cooking, taking showers, and so on. We'll soon see that's how threads behave.

Single-threaded

If you've ever lived on your own, then you know what this is like—you know that you can do anything you want in the house at any time, because there's nobody else in the house. If you want to turn on the stereo, use the washroom, have dinner—whatever—you just go ahead and do it.

Multi-threaded

Things change dramatically when you add another person into the house. Let's say you get married, so now you have a spouse living there too. You can't just march into the washroom at any given point; you need to check first to make sure your spouse isn't in there!

If you have two responsible adults living in a house, generally you can be reasonably lax about security—you know that the other adult will respect your space, won't try to set the kitchen on fire (deliberately!), and so on.

Now, throw a few kids into the mix and suddenly things get a lot more interesting.

Page updated: March 05, 2025