| This class presents a collection of static methods that allow access to
some native methods. It makes use of native methods to access those thread
properties.
Since the methods in this class require the presence of a shared library
with the name defined in SHLIB_NAME it is necessary to load it prior to
making use of any such methods. All methods that require the shared library
will automatically load the library if that has not been already done. The
library might also be manually loaded with the 'loadLibrary()' method of
this class.
This class provides only static methods. It should not be instantiated.
Currently the only native services available is settings relative to
POSIX threads, which are not accessible from the Java API.
Currently the methods in this class make sense with POSIX threads only,
since they access POSIX threads settings. POSIX threads are most used under
UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems and are mostly referred to as "native"
threads in Java Virtual Machine (JVM) implementations.
The shared library SHLIB_NAME uses functions of the POSIX thread library
(i.e. 'pthread'). Calling the methods that use the 'pthread' library will
most prbably cause the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to crash if it is not
using the POSIX threads, due to unsatisfied references. For instance, JVMs
that use "green" threads will most certainly crash. POSIX threads are
referred to as "native" threads in JVMs under UNIX operating systems.
On Operating Systems where POSIX threads are not available (typically
Windows 95/98/NT/2000, MacIntosh, OS/2) there is no problem since the
SHLIB_NAME, if available, will not make use of POSIX threads library
functions, thus no problem should occur.
| 