Creating a thread-safe queue with condition variables: an ‘academic’ example versus reality

▤ Summary

This article explains how to build a thread-safe queue in C++ using condition variables and mutexes. It starts with an academic producer-consumer example and then shows why that pattern needs adaptation for production code. The article walks through a reusable SafeQueue implementation with push, blocking pop, timeout-based pop, and shutdown support. It also highlights practical issues such as spurious wakeups, locking strategy, and the difference between std::lock_guard and std::unique_lock. The overall focus is on concurrent programming techniques and production-ready queue design.

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