[vdr] [PATCH] Automatically cleanup exited threads to fix memory leak

[Jon Burgess <mplayer@jburgess.uklinux.net>]

I have noticed for a while that the virtual memory usage of the VDR 
process grows by 16Mb for each channel switch. I can see this reflected 
in the top "size" field for the VDR process. After a large amount of 
channel switches the process would exhaust all of its virtual memory 
allowance and need to be restarted.

I have found that the cause of this leak is that the VDR threads which 
are restarted when changing channels do not get cleaned up properly. The 
exited threads hang around until something reads the exit status, 
exactly analogous to "zombie" child processes.

I noticed that nowhere in the thread code do we deal with reading the 
thread exit status. I think the easiest fix is to just detach all the 
threads so that they are automatically cleaned up as soon as they finish.

The patch attached works for me with vdr-1.3.3. It probably works for 
1.2.x as well, but I have not tried it.

   Jon



--- thread.c~	2004-01-03 16:59:33.000000000 +0000
+++ thread.c	2004-02-07 02:09:49.488977688 +0000
@@ -199,6 +199,7 @@
      running = true;
      parentTid = pthread_self();
      pthread_create(&childTid, NULL, (void *(*) (void *))&StartThread, (void *)this);
+     pthread_detach(childTid); /* Auto-reap */
      pthread_setschedparam(childTid, SCHED_RR, 0);
      usleep(10000); // otherwise calling Active() immediately after Start() causes a "pure virtual method called" error
      }