The code below appears to have incorrect behavior. The output is: $ ./a.exe Enter Testcase - ./a Create/start threads Thread 009e0290 00000000: Entered Thread 009f0320 00000000: Entered Thread 009f03a8 00000000: Entered Thread 18dbce64 00000000: INITIALIZE RESOURCE Wait for the threads to complete, and release their resources Thread 009f0430 00000000: Entered Thread 00a104f8 00000000: Entered Thread 009e0290 00000001: resource is>>> 0 Thread 009e0290 0000002a: The resource is 0 Thread 009f0320 0000002a: The resource is 0 Thread 009f03a8 0000002a: The resource is 0 Thread 009f0430 0000002a: The resource is 0 Thread 00a104f8 0000002a: The resource is 0 Main completed If I understand pthread_once(...) correctly, the output should be: Thread ... ...: The resource is 42 for all threads. The really strange thing is the printf(...) in initFunction(). This should print "resource is>>> 42" but I get: "resource is>>> 0". What's up? I'm using Cygwin 1.7 on Windows 7 with gcc (GCC) 4.3.4 20090804 (release) 1. ---John //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// #include <pthread.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <unistd.h> #define checkResults(string, val) { \ if (val) { \ printf("Failed with %d at %s", val, string); \ exit(1); \ } \ } #define NUMTHREADS 5 pthread_once_t oneTimeInit = PTHREAD_ONCE_INIT; int initialized = 0; int resource = 0; void initFunction(void) { printf("Thread %.8x %.8x: INITIALIZE RESOURCE\n"); initialized = 1; resource = 42; printf("Thread %.8x %.8x: resource is>>> %d\n", pthread_self(), resource); } void *theThread(void *parm) { int rc; printf("Thread %.8x %.8x: Entered\n", pthread_self()); //if (!initialized) { rc = pthread_once(&oneTimeInit, initFunction); checkResults("pthread_once()\n", rc); //} printf("Thread %.8x %.8x: The resource is %d\n", pthread_self(), resource); return NULL; } int main(int argc, char **argv) { pthread_t thread[NUMTHREADS]; int rc=0; int i; printf("Enter Testcase - %s\n", argv[0]); printf("Create/start threads\n"); for (i=0; i <NUMTHREADS; ++i) { rc = pthread_create(&thread[i], NULL, theThread, NULL); checkResults("pthread_create()\n", rc); } printf("Wait for the threads to complete, and release their resources\n"); for (i=0; i <NUMTHREADS; ++i) { rc = pthread_join(thread[i], NULL); checkResults("pthread_join()\n", rc); } printf("Main completed\n"); return 0; }