PillarDrill

The MyThreadFunction function avoids the use of the C run-time library (CRT), as many of its functions are not thread-safe, particularly if you are not using the multithreaded CRT. If you would like to use the CRT in a ThreadProc function, use the _beginthreadex function instead.

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Plunge drillbit

You can also create a thread by calling the CreateRemoteThread function. This function is used by debugger processes to create a thread that runs in the address space of the process being debugged.

Drilling a hole with a handheld drill is easy enough to do, but making the hole perfectly perpendicular to the surface can be tough. Triton has married a plunge mechanism to a cordless drill to create its new 18-volt cordless plunge drill for $289. It’s comparably priced to other 18-volt cordless hammer drills, although others lack the plunge features. Yes, $289 will buy you a drill press or even a plunge router, but if you’re a woodworker whose cordless drill is expected to do lots of home-improvement jobs, too, the Triton may be for you. The plunge mechanism telescopes from the drill body and can do a couple things for you. It helps guide the drill squarely into the material. It has a depth-of-drill stop to control the hole depth. With the fence attached (included with the drill), it centers itself over round stock and on outside corners. The fence can also be registered against an outside edge of a board so an entire series of holes (for instance, adjustable-shelf holes) can be uniformly spaced from the edge. The plunge mechanism self-stores, locking in the body of the drill when not needed. The plunge drill also has a 24-position clutch, 1/2-in. chuck, hammer function (used for drilling into concrete) and an LED light so you can see where you’re boring. The drill comes with two batteries and a charger.

DrillPress

The following is a simple example that demonstrates how to create a new thread that executes the locally defined function, MyThreadFunction.

The CreateThread function creates a new thread for a process. The creating thread must specify the starting address of the code that the new thread is to execute. Typically, the starting address is the name of a function defined in the program code (for more information, see ThreadProc). This function takes a single parameter and returns a DWORD value. A process can have multiple threads simultaneously executing the same function.

The calling thread uses the WaitForMultipleObjects function to persist until all worker threads have terminated. The calling thread blocks while it is waiting; to continue processing, a calling thread would use WaitForSingleObject and wait for each worker thread to signal its wait object. Note that if you were to close the handle to a worker thread before it terminated, this does not terminate the worker thread. However, the handle will be unavailable for use in subsequent function calls.

It is risky to pass the address of a local variable if the creating thread exits before the new thread, because the pointer becomes invalid. Instead, either pass a pointer to dynamically allocated memory or make the creating thread wait for the new thread to terminate. Data can also be passed from the creating thread to the new thread using global variables. With global variables, it is usually necessary to synchronize access by multiple threads. For more information about synchronization, see Synchronizing Execution of Multiple Threads.