RE: [xml] thread safe?

["Igor Zlatkovic" <izlatkovic daenet de>]

Hi there.

> Is the nature of the 
> unsafe-ness such that
> I can handle it by using a mutex to prevent more than one 
> thread at a time
> from entering any of my code (two sections of code) that use 
> libxml or is
> it of a more serious nature?

It seems serious enough to me.

If all underlying libraries used by libxml2 are fully reentrant on your
platform and do not require per-thread intialisation and/or cleanup, the
mutex could perhaps save you. In other case, everything but restricting
the calls into libxml2 to a single thread is an invitation for trouble.

> I've gone so far as to be nearly ready to deliver product 
> that uses it in a
> multithreaded way, so this revelation has my heart up in my throat.

First code the product down to the iron and then spend a thought on how
suitable are the third-party libraries you used? Such approach to the
software engineering process guarantees failure sooner or later.

Ciao
Igor