Reader/Writer Locks in C++

Newer versions of boost::thread have read/write locks (1.35.0 and later, apparently the previous versions did not work correctly).

They have the names shared_lock, unique_lock, and upgrade_lock and operate on a shared_mutex.

Since C++ 17 (VS2015) you can use the standard:

#include <shared_mutex>

typedef std::shared_mutex Lock;
typedef std::unique_lock< Lock >  WriteLock;
typedef std::shared_lock< Lock >  ReadLock;

Lock myLock;

void ReadFunction()
{
     ReadLock r_lock(myLock);
     //Do reader stuff
}

void WriteFunction()
{
     WriteLock w_lock(myLock);
     //Do writer stuff
}

For older compiler versions and standards you can use boost to create a read-write lock:

#include <boost/thread/locks.hpp>
#include <boost/thread/shared_mutex.hpp>

typedef boost::shared_mutex Lock;
typedef boost::unique_lock< Lock >  WriteLock;
typedef boost::shared_lock< Lock >  ReadLock;