multithreading - What is a "thread" (really)?

Question

I have been trying to find a good definition, and get an understanding, of what a thread really is.

It seems that I must be missing something obvious, but every time I read about what a thread is, it's almost a circular definition, a la "a thread is a thread of execution" or " a way to divide into running tasks". Uh uh. Huh?

It seems from what I have read that a thread is not really something concrete, like a process is. It is in fact just a concept. From what I understand of the way this works, a processor executes some commands for a program (which has been termed a thread of execution), then when it needs to switch to processing for some other program for a bit, it stores the state of the program it's currently executing for somewhere (Thread Local Storage) and then starts executing the other program's instructions. And back and forth. Such that, a thread is really just a concept for "one of the paths of execution" of a program that is currently running.

Unlike a process, which really is something - it is a conglomeration of resources, etc.

As an example of a definition that didn't really help me much . . .

From Wikipedia:

"A thread in computer science is short for a thread of execution. Threads are a way for a program to divide (termed "split") itself into two or more simultaneously (or pseudo-simultaneously) running tasks. Threads and processes differ from one operating system to another but, in general, a thread is contained inside a process and different threads in the same process share same resources while different processes in the same multitasking operating system do not."

So am I right? Wrong? What is a thread really?

Edit: Apparently a thread is also given its own call stack, so that is somewhat of a concrete thing.

Answer 1

A thread is an execution context, which is all the information a CPU needs to execute a stream of instructions.

Suppose you're reading a book, and you want to take a break right now, but you want to be able to come back and resume reading from the exact point where you stopped. One way to achieve that is by jotting down the page number, line number, and word number. So your execution context for reading a book is these 3 numbers.

If you have a roommate, and she's using the same technique, she can take the book while you're not using it, and resume reading from where she stopped. Then you can take it back, and resume it from where you were.

Threads work in the same way. A CPU is giving you the illusion that it's doing multiple computations at the same time. It does that by spending a bit of time on each computation. It can do that because it has an execution context for each computation. Just like you can share a book with your friend, many tasks can share a CPU.

On a more technical level, an execution context (therefore a thread) consists of the values of the CPU's registers.

Last: threads are different from processes. A thread is a context of execution, while a process is a bunch of resources associated with a computation. A process can have one or many threads.

Clarification: the resources associated with a process include memory pages (all the threads in a process have the same view of the memory), file descriptors (e.g., open sockets), and security credentials (e.g., the ID of the user who started the process).