Windows线程池API的使用

做一个测试项目需要进行多个小项的测试。感觉类似一个个的小任务，便想到Windows的线程池。先看一下MSDN中对于线程池描述。

A thread pool is a collection of worker threads that efficiently execute asynchronous callbacks on behalf of the application. The thread pool is primarily used to reduce the number of application threads and provide management of the worker threads. Applications can queue work items, associate work with waitable handles, automatically queue based on a timer, and bind with I/O.

Thread Pool Architecture

The following applications can benefit from using a thread pool:

• An application that is highly parallel and can dispatch a large number of small work items asynchronously (such as distributed index search or network I/O).
• An application that creates and destroys a large number of threads that each run for a short time. Using the thread pool can reduce the complexity of thread management and the overhead involved in thread creation and destruction.
• An application that processes independent work items in the background and in parallel (such as loading multiple tabs).
• An application that must perform an exclusive wait on kernel objects or block on incoming events on an object. Using the thread pool can reduce the complexity of thread management and increase performance by reducing the number of context switches.
• An application that creates custom waiter threads to wait on events.

The original thread pool has been completely rearchitected in Windows Vista. The new thread pool is improved because it provides a single worker thread type (supports both I/O and non-I/O), does not use a timer thread, provides a single timer queue, and provides a dedicated persistent thread. It also provides clean-up groups, higher performance, multiple pools per process that are scheduled independently, and a new thread pool API.

The thread pool architecture consists of the following:

• Worker threads that execute the callback functions
• Waiter threads that wait on multiple wait handles
• A work queue
• A default thread pool for each process
• A worker factory that manages the worker threads

MSDN中有关于最新线程池的示例代码，如下:

#include <windows.h>
#include <tch