MFC C++ Naming threads for debugger

[MXL]

Inside MS Dev Studio 2003.net when you are debugging and looking at the threads window. The name of most of the threads is "_threadstartex". Is there a way to assign a useful name to the thread so I can very quickly look in this window and figure out what the threads are? Thanks

[a-j]

I'm assuming the app you are developing is .NET and not, say a regular console/C++ app using windows threads. On the Thread class there is a property called "name". I would think that MS/VS would use this property for display purposes, but I haven't done enough .NET programming to know for sure.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...mberstopic.asp

[MXL]

It is unmanaged C++ and I am using AfxBeginThread to start the worker threads. I have 100's of threads running and it would be nice to scan the threads window and look at the names to determine which thread it is.

[n0nsensical]

Originally Posted by MXL

It is unmanaged C++ and I am using AfxBeginThread to start the worker threads. I have 100's of threads running and it would be nice to scan the threads window and look at the names to determine which thread it is.

This is from the Visual Studio .NET documentation:

This is for Unmanaged C/C++ only. To set a thread name in your program, use the SetThreadName function, as shown in the following example:

//
// Usage: SetThreadName (-1, "MainThread");
//
typedef struct tagTHREADNAME_INFO
{
DWORD dwType; // must be 0x1000
LPCSTR szName; // pointer to name (in user addr space)
DWORD dwThreadID; // thread ID (-1=caller thread)
DWORD dwFlags; // reserved for future use, must be zero
} THREADNAME_INFO;

void SetThreadName( DWORD dwThreadID, LPCSTR szThreadName)
{
THREADNAME_INFO info;
info.dwType = 0x1000;
info.szName = szThreadName;
info.dwThreadID = dwThreadID;
info.dwFlags = 0;

__try
{
RaiseException( 0x406D1388, 0, sizeof(info)/sizeof(DWORD), (DWORD*)&info );
}
except(EXCEPTION_CONTINUE_EXECUTION)
{
}
}

So with that code and assuming it still works with Dev Studio 2003.NET (if the RaiseException breaks or something, look for SetThreadName in the index of your docs), just do
CWinThread * pThread = AfxBeginThread(...);
SetThreadName(pThread->m_nThreadID, "Foo");

edit: fixed a typo in the doc: the line
info.dwThreadID = dwThreadID;
was originally
info.dwThreadID = dwThread;
but that's obviously a compiler error since there is no variable dwThread.

[MXL]

Thanks, that worked, and it so well documented by Microsoft too.