[mythtv] "The fallacy that is: spawning a decoder thread willalways result in playing" or "Hurry up and wait"

[Anduin Withers]

> or introduce an error condition variable to dump it out of that loop

I tried a variant of that my first attempt. I'm attaching a patch that works
for me (no new breakage that I can detect).

Note: I only patched the one case I care about, the hopeful spinning idle
loop idiom seems pretty entrenched in other places as well (though mostly
with less dire results).

--
Anduin Withers

-------------- next part --------------
Index: NuppelVideoPlayer.cpp
===================================================================
RCS file: /var/lib/mythcvs/mythtv/libs/libmythtv/NuppelVideoPlayer.cpp,v
retrieving revision 1.245
diff -u -r1.245 NuppelVideoPlayer.cpp
--- NuppelVideoPlayer.cpp	7 Aug 2003 17:37:41 -0000	1.245
+++ NuppelVideoPlayer.cpp	8 Aug 2003 02:56:09 -0000
@@ -55,6 +55,7 @@
         m_playbackinfo = new ProgramInfo(*info);
 
     playing = false;
+    decoder_thread_alive = false;
     filename = "output.nuv";
     prebuffering = false;
 
Index: NuppelVideoPlayer.h
===================================================================
RCS file: /var/lib/mythcvs/mythtv/libs/libmythtv/NuppelVideoPlayer.h,v
retrieving revision 1.104
diff -u -r1.104 NuppelVideoPlayer.h
--- NuppelVideoPlayer.h	6 Aug 2003 17:35:48 -0000	1.104
+++ NuppelVideoPlayer.h	8 Aug 2003 02:56:09 -0000
@@ -66,6 +66,14 @@
     
     bool IsPlaying(void) { return playing; }
 
+    // Calling this function _before_ spawning a decoder thread
+    // will allow you to check if that thread is still running.
+    void StartingDecoderThread() { decoder_thread_alive = true; }
+    // Only useful if you call StartingDecoderThread
+    bool IsDecoderThreadAlive() { return decoder_thread_alive; }
+    // Must be called from the thread context when it is exiting.
+    void DecoderThreadExit() { decoder_thread_alive = false; }
+
     void SetRingBuffer(RingBuffer *rbuf) { ringBuffer = rbuf; }
 
     void SetAudioSampleRate(int rate) { audio_samplerate = rate; }
@@ -296,6 +304,8 @@
     bool cc;
 
     bool playing;
+
+    bool decoder_thread_alive;
 
     RingBuffer *ringBuffer;
     bool weMadeBuffer; 
Index: tv_play.cpp
===================================================================
RCS file: /var/lib/mythcvs/mythtv/libs/libmythtv/tv_play.cpp,v
retrieving revision 1.89
diff -u -r1.89 tv_play.cpp
--- tv_play.cpp	5 Aug 2003 21:10:58 -0000	1.89
+++ tv_play.cpp	8 Aug 2003 02:56:11 -0000
@@ -65,6 +65,8 @@
 {
     NuppelVideoPlayer *nvp = (NuppelVideoPlayer *)param;
     nvp->StartPlaying();
+    nvp->StopPlaying();
+    nvp->DecoderThreadExit();
     return NULL;
 }
 
@@ -496,9 +498,10 @@
     if (startPlayer)
     {
         SetupPlayer();
+        nvp->StartingDecoderThread();
         pthread_create(&decode, NULL, SpawnDecode, nvp);
 
-        while (!nvp->IsPlaying())
+        while (!nvp->IsPlaying() && nvp->IsDecoderThreadAlive())
             usleep(50);
 
         activenvp = nvp;