Is there a generic way to access efficient platform-appropriate memory barriers (also compare and swap) in any arbitrary C or C++ program compiled under gcc (not just a compiler ordering directive, but extending to hardware guarantees)? If it is documented somewhere, I apologize. It would be critical to many sorts of new projects attempting lock-free operations for multi-processor machines. Every significant project I know winds up redefining their own, and it would seem to me that the GCC compiler is a very appropriate place to have these generically defined. I am just trying to make a lock-free hashtable. I do not see a C++ standard emerging for years. Thanks, Ray Whitmer
