Function std::thread::spawn1.0.0 [] [src]

pub fn spawn<F, T>(f: F) -> JoinHandle<T> where
    F: FnOnce() -> T,
    F: Send + 'static,
    T: Send + 'static, 

Spawns a new thread, returning a JoinHandle for it.

The join handle will implicitly detach the child thread upon being dropped. In this case, the child thread may outlive the parent (unless the parent thread is the main thread; the whole process is terminated when the main thread finishes). Additionally, the join handle provides a join method that can be used to join the child thread. If the child thread panics, join will return an Err containing the argument given to panic.

This will create a thread using default parameters of Builder, if you want to specify the stack size or the name of the thread, use this API instead.

As you can see in the signature of spawn there are two constraints on both the closure given to spawn and its return value, let's explain them:

Panics

Panics if the OS fails to create a thread; use Builder::spawn to recover from such errors.

Examples

Creating a thread.

use std::thread;

let handler = thread::spawn(|| {
    // thread code
});

handler.join().unwrap();Run

As mentioned in the module documentation, threads are usually made to communicate using channels, here is how it usually looks.

This example also shows how to use move, in order to give ownership of values to a thread.

use std::thread;
use std::sync::mpsc::channel;

let (tx, rx) = channel();

let sender = thread::spawn(move || {
    tx.send("Hello, thread".to_owned())
        .expect("Unable to send on channel");
});

let receiver = thread::spawn(move || {
    let value = rx.recv().expect("Unable to receive from channel");
    println!("{}", value);
});

sender.join().expect("The sender thread has panicked");
receiver.join().expect("The receiver thread has panicked");Run

A thread can also return a value through its JoinHandle, you can use this to make asynchronous computations (futures might be more appropriate though).

use std::thread;

let computation = thread::spawn(|| {
    // Some expensive computation.
    42
});

let result = computation.join().unwrap();
println!("{}", result);Run